


Furnace

by Irelando



Series: the light [9]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Gen, tags will update as we go!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-10-22 00:09:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10685739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irelando/pseuds/Irelando
Summary: Furnace (n.)An enclosed structure in which material can be heated to very high temperatures, e.g. for smelting metals.(aka: Rogue One infiltrates an Imperial prison)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is, at long last, the beginning of the next installment of the Kindling 'verse!
> 
> I'm aiming for weekly updates. If I can get enough of a buffer, I'll bump it up, but for now there will be a new chapter every Thursday night! I imagine this'll be around the same length as Stoke. Hope you enjoy!

Even though it’s a cold, miserable excuse for a planet, after a standard month of living on Hoth with the Rebellion, Jyn’s surprised to discover it starts to feel like home. She stops getting lost in the endless, winding corridors of the base. Her body adjusts to the cold so she’s not always on the edge of a shiver. People greet her by name as she passes by. She even develops something of a routine; sparring in the morning with Chirrut and Luke or various Rebellion soldiers who think they can take her on, lunch with Bodhi, afternoons varied enough to keep things interesting, and nights with Cassian.

She half expects to get stir-crazy after a couple of weeks. She’s been a nomad her whole life, after all, bouncing from one planet to another since she was too young to remember. As it turns out, after wandering for twenty six years straight, a month sleeping in the same bed every night is a welcome change.

Stands to reason it wouldn’t last.

Luckily, she’s with Cassian when the call comes in, keeping him company while he fiddles with the computer on the U-wing. A pilot she vaguely recognizes from the slowly-reforming Gold Squadron knocks on the hull and pokes her head inside. “Major Andor? You’re wanted in Command.”

He glances up, his brow furrowing just slightly. “I’ll be right there.” The pilot nods and departs.

Cassian taps a quick command into the nav computer, and stands, stretching. He raises an eyebrow at Jyn, an invitation he hasn’t had to say aloud in weeks. _Coming?_

She grins and falls into step beside him.

\--

Mon Mothma and Draven are waiting when they reach the command center. If they’re surprised to see Jyn at Cassian’s side, they don’t show it. Cassian notes Draven’s mouth thinning slightly; while Jyn hasn’t followed up on her threat to punch the General, she’s by no means forgiven him, or made any attempt to hide her grudge.

This time, she just nods once, sharply, and after a moment Draven returns the motion. Cassian stifles a smile and folds his arms. “Councilor. General. What’s going on?”

The two Rebellion leaders exchange a glance. “Despite your… unorthodox departure,” Draven says, “Rogue One did good work on Coruscant.” He taps at a holopad in his hand. “We’ve had a dozen ships and several times that many recruits trickle in over the past month.”

Cassian straightens a little, unable to help the surge of pride in his chest. He already knew they’d done well – had seen Avan and Rieve, briefly, before the smugglers left on a mission of their own – but praise from Draven was rare, even couched in mission statistics. “Thank you.”

“You didn’t call us here to congratulate us,” Jyn points out.

Mon Mothma nods. Her eyes flicker to Jyn’s shoulder, then to Cassian. “Major, is your team fully recovered from Coruscant?”

He nods.

She glances to her counterpart. “General, if you would.”

Draven sets his holopad down, focusing across the display in front of him to meet Cassian’s eyes. “We’ve received Intelligence reports that a person of significant interest to this Rebellion has been located in Imperial custody.”

“Who?” Jyn asks.

The General takes a deliberate breath, a flash of annoyance crossing his features, but it doesn’t look like it’s directed at Jyn. “We don’t know,” he admits.

Jyn’s eyebrows rise. Cassian senses an impending crack at Draven’s competence and heads it off with his own question: “Then what do we know?”

Draven drums his fingers on his leg. “This person’s identity is hidden behind several high-security firewalls. That alone suggests they may be of interest to us. We’ve been able to dig up very little: just that they have ties to the Rebellion, and to Saw Gerrera.”  

Jyn stiffens at the name, but doesn’t speak. Draven’s eyes flicker to her, a calculating look in his gaze. “We also found a name; rather, a code name. Songbird. Does that ring any bells, Sergeant Erso?”

She starts. “What?”

“You worked with Saw Gerrera,” Mothma says gently. “Did you ever hear of this Songbird?”

Jyn gives it a moment of thought. “No,” she says.

Cassian eyes her, unsure for a moment if she’s telling the truth. Her gaze flickers to him briefly, and he settles back. She’s guarded, yes, but not lying.

“You’re sure?” Draven presses.

Jyn’s eyes narrow. “Yes.”

“So, what’s the mission?” Cassian asks, before the tension can grow any thicker.

Draven breaks eye contact first. He taps at the table before them, bringing up an image of an unremarkable planet. “Our sources indicate the Songbird is being held in a prison on the Imperial world of Goshyn. It’s the back end of nowhere, but the prison is surprisingly well-defended, so discretion is our best bet. Your task is to infiltrate the prison, figure out who this Songbird is, and find out what they know.”

“Why?” Jyn asks.

Draven glances at her. “Because, Sergeant Erso, the secrecy around the Songbird’s identity is beyond anything I’ve encountered before. Whoever they are, someone in the Empire doesn’t want us finding out. That concerns me.” He looks back at Cassian. “Find out what information the Songbird has that might endanger this Rebellion.”

“And then?” Cassian asks, even though he knows the answer.

“Extract them, if possible.”

“And if not?” Jyn asks.

Draven meets her eyes squarely. “Do what has to be done. We’re running ragged as it is; if the Songbird has sensitive information, it cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy.”

Jyn smiles bitterly. “I’m sensing a trend with you, General.”

“Someone has to make the hard decisions, Erso,” Draven says, with none of the anger Cassian expected. “Ask Major Andor about that sometime.”

“Unless you have any further questions,” Mon Mothma interjects calmly, “All the intel we have will be sent to your ship.”

Cassian nods. “We’ll leave in the morning.”

“May the Force be with you,” Mothma says.

“And with you,” Cassian replies. He glances at Jyn.

She falls into step beside him as they pace back towards the hangar. Under the anger simmering on the surface, he can almost see her mind working.

Then, suddenly, she grabs his arm and yanks him into an alcove. He checks the instinct to pull free. She spends a second checking the hallway, then retreats into the little nook with him. They stand in silence for a long moment. Cassian waits.

When it doesn’t seem like she’s going to speak first, he breaks the silence. “Jyn?”

She looks up at him, her eyes guarded in a way he hasn’t seen in a long time. “If we’re gonna do this,” she says quietly, “We need some ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” he echoes. Her face is deadly serious. He nods. “Okay.”

“I don’t care what Draven says,” she bites out. “We will not kill Songbird.”

“Do you know who it is?” Cassian asks curiously.

She shakes her head. “But if they’re on our side, they deserve better than a blaster shot in the back. We have to be better than that.”

Cassian pauses. In reality, they both know that Jyn couldn’t stop him if he decided it was the right thing to do. This isn’t about that. This is about her father again, about trust.

There’s an easy answer here, but he’s promised both of them he’s not going to lie to her anymore. “Jyn… We may not have a choice.”

“No,” she says.

“It’s not just about you,” he says, as gently as he can. “You’re in the Rebellion now. Sometimes we have to do things—“

Her fists clench. “Don’t you dare pull the party line on me, Cassian Andor,” she growls. “You’re right, this is the Rebellion. Not the Empire. Prove it. We did it on Coruscant, we can do it again.”

He turns the problem over in his mind for a moment. “We have to agree,” he says, finally.

“What?”

“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says. “I can’t promise it won’t come to that. I don’t want it to. If you believe nothing else, believe that.” He takes a deep breath. “But I promise, I won’t make that call without you. We have to agree. Deal?”

She studies him. “And if I never say yes?”

He meets her eyes. “Then we’ll find another way.”

Cassian can pinpoint the exact moment she decides to believe him, like something clicks into place in the air between them. The tension in her shoulders eases. “Okay,” she says. “Deal.”

Draven wouldn’t be happy about that, Cassian thinks. He’d said as much in private meetings – that Jyn Erso was too much of an idealist, unwilling to make hard decisions. But Cassian knows better; Jyn just has a much higher threshold for ‘acceptable’ losses. He’s increasingly sure that’s not a bad thing.

“Are we okay?” he asks, tentatively.

She nods and takes his hand long enough to squeeze it. “We’re good.” She rises up on tip-toe to kiss his cheek lightly, then drops back down. “Let’s go fill in the others.”


	2. Chapter 2

Later that day, Cassian fills in the rest of Rogue One on the mission.

Bodhi rubs the back of his neck, staring at the holo of Goshyn prison complex hovering before them. “That… does not look inviting.”

“Have you been before?” Cassian asks. “When you were with the Empire?”

Bodhi shakes his head. “I never got all that far from Jedha. I’ve never even heard of Goshyn. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Cassian tells him. He turns back to the holo, studying the layout of the prison. “It’s a big place. We’ll need to be able to cover a lot of ground.”

“I can go in as a tech,” Bodhi says. “I know enough to fake it, and that way maybe I can get a look into their systems and find the Songbird without us having to, you know, search every cell.”

“That’s a good idea,” Cassian says. “I can go in as a Stormtrooper.”

“As long as it’s not me wearing that armor,” Baze mumbles.

“I will replace a security droid,” Kaytoo announces. Then, when everyone looks at him, “What?”

“Kay, you’re… not a great liar,” Cassian says carefully.

Kaytoo looks affronted. “I have been working on it. You still believe that I don’t know about you and Sergeant Erso.”

Cassian coughs. “Ah. Point taken.”

“The Force is telling me I may not be of much use on this mission,” Chirrut says from where he sits against the wall.

Cassian hesitates. “Probably not inside the prison, no,” he admits.

Chirrut nods. “Baze and I will be the backup, then.”

“Actually,” Jyn says, “Baze, you’re perfect for getting me in.”

The Guardian’s eyebrows rise. “How’s that?”

“How’s your bounty hunter impression?”

“Jyn,” Cassian starts, obviously seeing where she’s going with this.

Jyn plows through. “There’s a standing bounty on any escaped Imperial prisoner. As far as the Empire knows, I’m still Liana Hallik, runaway from Wobani.”

“Jyn,” Cassian repeats, sounding pained. “You don’t have to—“

She turns to flash him a half-smile. “Why not? I know the role. I’m good at it. It’s practically a guaranteed in. And Songbird’s not going to trust someone wearing an Imperial uniform.”

He looks at her for a long moment, worry plain in the lines around his eyes and the set of his mouth. One hand starts to rise, briefly, then falls back to his side. “Jyn…”

“I’ll be fine,” she tells him, doing her best to project a confidence she’s not sure she feels. Kaytoo’s neck whirrs faintly as the droid looks back and forth between them, reminding Jyn that the others are there. She glances at Baze. “What about you? You up for playing bounty hunter?”

He looks a little concerned, too, but he nods. “Sounds like fun.”

\--

Goshyn City is barely deserving of the name, a podunk little stain on the side of an unremarkable Outer Rim planet, far overshadowed by the massive prison complex looming beside it. It can’t be more than a couple of klicks in diameter at its widest point.

That doesn’t make it fun to march across with your hands shackled in front of you, Jyn soon discovers.

Baze is as gentle as he can be, but they have to sell the lie. His hand on her elbow keeps her upright, but she’s pretty sure she’ll have bruises by the next day. She’s almost glad to finally stumble to a stop in front of the prison gates, raising bound hands to push sweaty strands of hair out of her face.

Her heart thuds faintly in her chest as she looks up. And up, at the walls before her. The Empire doesn’t do things by halves, she’ll give them that much. She’d hoped never to see the inside of one of their prisons again, especially not as a prisoner.

 _You chose this. Follow it through_.

She feels oddly vulnerable, not because of her bound hands or imminent imprisonment, but because of the absence of the kyber crystal around her neck. She’d been lucky enough to hang onto it on her first trip through the Imperial prison system. She hadn’t been willing to risk it a second time.

_“Hold onto this for me.”_

_Chirrut turns the pendant over in his fingers. “Are you sure?”_

_She smiles. He can’t see it, but he’ll hear it in her voice. “I can’t imagine leaving it with anyone else.” She knows the Guardian will take care of it, probably better than she does._

_He nods and slips the cord over his neck._

“Oi,” Baze shouts, startling Jyn out of her memory. “Delivery.”

Jyn fights down a smirk. _Nice_.

A comm panel next to the door crackles to life. “There are no prisoner intakes scheduled today.”

“I heard you’re always taking escapees,” Baze says. “I want the money.”

“Hold on,” the voice says, and clicks off.

Baze’s hand is on her shoulder in the appearance of restraint, but as they wait, he gives it a small reassuring squeeze. Jyn takes what strength she can from it.

 _You survived Scarif_ , she reminds herself. _You can do this._

The door hisses open. A scrawny man in Imperial grey steps out, flanked by two armed Stormtroopers. “Our facial recognition indicates you are Liana Hallik, recently escaped from Wobani labor camp. Is that correct?”

Jyn glares, and doesn’t answer. Baze gives her a shake, prods her in the back with his blaster. “Tell him.”

She spits on the ground, making the Imperial recoil in disgust. “Yeah,” she says finally.

The officer’s lip curls. “Well,” he says, “Looks like your luck has run out. You’ll find it much harder to escape from my prison.” He jerks his head at the Stormtroopers.

One takes Jyn’s arm, digging gloved fingers into her skin. She refuses to wince, shoves the sudden spike of fear brutally down where it can’t show on her face. She knows how to do this. Feeling is new; she spent years teaching herself how to be numb to survive. She sinks back into that numbness now.

“The money,” Baze says, his hand still on her shoulder.

The second Stormtrooper holds out a credit stick. Baze eyes it, then reluctantly lets go of Jyn’s shoulder to take it. “There,” the trooper says. “Now go, scavenger.”

“Pleasure doing business,” Baze says. He turns to go, already pulling a holopad out to check the credit stick’s balance.

Jyn resists the urge to look back at him as they drag her to the gates. Instead, she buries herself deeper, digs to find the place she hid her true self for so many years. She’s let herself get out of practice. It’s much harder than it used to be.

The gates rumble closed behind them. A chill settles in Jyn’s gut. Cassian, Bodhi, and Kaytoo should already be inside, having spirited their way onto a personnel transport the day before, but for right now, she’s alone.

“You should learn not to spit at your betters,” the officer says. Jyn raises her head—

and one of the troopers cracks her across the face with the butt of his rifle, sending her spinning to the ground. She bites back a groan, raising her bound hands to prod gingerly at the already-swelling welt on her cheek.

Then she laughs. “Is that the best you got?”

The officer sniffs. “You’ll learn.” He turns to the troopers. “Process her.”

She remembers this part. The troopers haul her to her feet and drag her into a bare metal cell that almost resembles a fresher. They cut her hands loose; mechanically, she strips her clothes off (because otherwise they’ll do it for her). The water that rushes from the ceiling is freezing cold and smells of the faint tang of metal.

Jyn thinks back to the day before.

_Cassian’s hands on her cheeks, his lips pressed against hers. “You don’t have to do this,” he says, for the tenth time since they landed._

_She lets herself cling to him, breathes deep of his leather jacket-blaster discharge scent, not yet hidden beneath white plastoid armor. “I’ll be okay,” she says, also for the tenth time. “You’ve got my back. Right?”_

_He leans his forehead against hers. “Always.”_

They shove a prison jumpsuit at her and she climbs into it. It’s too big. She pushes the sleeves up.

“D Block,” one says to the other. “Cell 5213.”

Jyn knows she should keep her eyes down as they march her into D Block, let them think she’s cowed. But her curiosity gets the better of her.

There must be twenty, maybe thirty levels of cells lining the two towering metal walls, with a sad little excuse for a courtyard in between them. She remembers the layout from Wobani, but this place is much better maintained. _At least_ , she thinks wryly _, maybe there won’t be water dripping on my head all night_. Small favors.

She watches the Stormtroopers they pass. Did that one look at her just a little too long? Is that droid’s back hunched, just a little? Or is she just imagining it in hopes of warding off the sense of isolation closing steadily in around her?

Her heart starts to pound again. Her cheek throbs with every breath, every blink. She swallows hard.

 _He’s here, somewhere_ , she tells herself. He promised he would be, so he is. It has to be that simple.

She has a mission. She has to keep it together. She can do this.

The guards key the cell door shut behind her. Jyn regards it with a certain amount of exasperation; in a place this big, you would think they could give prisoners at least enough room to walk around. The beds (a term she uses very loosely) take up most of the space, with just enough room to sidle between them and reach the sink and toilet at the far end. If there weren’t obstacles, the room might be five paces across, and that’s a generous estimate.

Her cellmate is gone, whoever they are, off on whatever hellish work rotation they might be assigned to. Jyn resists the urge to go to the bars and keep looking for her friends. Instead, she crawls onto the clearly unoccupied of the two beds, pressing her aching face into the cold metal of the pallet.

Eventually, she drifts. Could be an hour, could be a minute. Then a noise draws her back to consciousness – footsteps, loud and deliberate.

They stop outside her cell. She lies still, waiting.

“Block D, clear,” a modulated voice says, familiar even through the distortion of the helmet’s vocalizer.

Jyn raises her head to look. The trooper standing on the other side of the bars turns, deliberately, to look at her.

“Do you need a medic?” the trooper asks, and the soft edges of his accent are like a breath of fresh air. The gnawing fear in Jyn’s gut eases. She hears the real question underneath: _Are you okay? Do you need to get out?_ But the question is all she needed to settle, to remember that no matter how alone she might feel surrounded by cold stone and iron, she’s not. Not anymore.

He’s been looking at her too long. She paints a sneer on her mouth, giving her voice a nasty edge. “I don’t need anything from you.”

His head dips slightly. He paces away.

Jyn rolls back onto her side on the pallet. It’s a harsh change coming from weeks spent curled up warm with Cassian, but she can handle it. She presses her swelling cheek back to the metal, closes her eyes, and holds the memory of those few words close to her heart.

She has backup. She’s not alone.

And they have a job to do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did you find Songbird?” Jyn murmurs. Her fingers itch, aching to reach out through the bars, but instead she folds her arms across her chest. It wouldn’t satisfy her anyway, to touch a Stormtrooper’s glove.
> 
> He hesitates. “Yes,” he says, and Jyn would swear she can hear strain in his voice, muffled as it is. “You’ll be on the same work crew today. Prisoner 03812.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay! This is a nice long chapter, so hopefully it's worth the wait. The next one should be out on time on Thursday!

For four painful, boring days, very little happens.

Cassian’s played Stormtrooper before, more times than he can count. It’s easy; anonymous behind plastoid armor and a voice modulator, the only thing left is posture and attitude. The armor does half the work for him on the former. The latter is the simplest thing in the world: don’t ask questions. Ever.

Even so, the first day is a little rough. His back isn’t used to the stiff, unnatural posture Stormtroopers are trained into. His skin isn’t used to the stifling confines of the armor, sweating and itching until it takes all of his willpower to keep from ripping it off.

The first night, he sleeps fitfully at best, spends the rest of the night formulating possible exit strategies. He doesn’t want to waste any time when they find Songbird. Not if he can help it.

The second day, he spots Bodhi while patrolling D Block, the pilot almost unrecognizable with his hair carefully groomed and his usual ragged beard clipped neatly to meet Imperial regs. He’s pretty sure Bodhi doesn’t recognize him behind the mask. If he does, he doesn’t show it.

That night, unable to sleep, he makes his fourth trip to the lavatory and finds Bodhi staring into the mirror with a painful blankness in his eyes. It takes a full ten seconds for the pilot to react to the door hissing open. Then, he startles. “Cassian. Sorry, I… didn’t hear you come in,” he finishes, a little lamely.

Cassian studies him for a moment. “Are you okay?” he asks quietly.

Bodhi nods, but he says, “No.” His eyes flicker to the ground, then back up. “It’s harder than I thought it would be.”

This is Bodhi’s first real undercover assignment. Cassian remembers his own, how much harder it was than he expected to live a lie 24/7. “I know,” he says.

Bodhi picks at the Imperial logo on his undershirt. He turns to look in the mirror again.

“If you need to get out, tell me,” Cassian says, as gently as he can.

The pilot bites his lip. “This is important.”

“It is,” Cassian agrees. “And I won’t lie. It would be harder without you.” He pauses. “But you’re important, too.”

Bodhi’s shoulders square, just a little. He watches himself a moment more, than nods. “I can do this.”

Cassian bites down on a _You sure?_ Bodhi doesn’t need him to second-guess this. “I know,” he says instead, and clasps the pilot’s shoulder.

The third day, Cassian passes Kaytoo, the droid’s infinitesimal slouch as clear as day to Cassian’s trained eye. He would swear the droid _winks_ at him, a quick flicker of one eyelight. He spends a few hours puzzling over how Kay recognized him before realizing the droid probably tapped into the Imperial ID system linked to Cassian’s armor.

That night, exhaustion drives him into a restless sleep. He wakes just as tired as he was the night before.

Throughout, he keeps an eye on Jyn, but only from a distance. Making contact once was risky enough, even if the naked relief in her eyes was absolutely worth it. He doesn’t dare do it again. So he watches from afar as the bruise on her cheek spreads, turning an ugly mottled purple and red, and resists the urge to track down the trooper responsible.

Even worse, he watches her retreat into herself. She starts to look more and more like the woman he met in the War Room: guarded, suspicious, the fire inside her tamped down lest it draw unwanted attention. Despite his attempts to stay objective, his heart aches every time her eyes skid over him without a hint of recognition.

On the fourth day, he manages to swing it so he’s patrolling D-Block right as the prisoners are settling down for the night. He pauses a few cells before Jyn’s, pulses his commlink a couple of times to create a burst of static that will hopefully draw attention.

“Trooper SW-0608,” he says, “Reporting D-Block clear.”

He waits until the acknowledgment comes back, then continues on his path past the cells.

Jyn doesn’t look up from where she’s seated on the edge of her cot as he passes, but he’s pretty sure there’s a hint of a smile playing around the corner of her mouth.

The fourth night, finally, something changes. He’s stationed outside the security office, trying to decide whether he should recount the tiles in the floor or the ceiling this time, when one of the guards inside suddenly shifts. “Did you see that?”

“See what?” the other trooper says, in a tone that suggest he couldn’t possibly care less if the fate of the universe depended on it.

“Someone just went into the server room,” the first guard says.

“Who?”

“Looked like a tech.”

“Probably just a routine visit.”

Cassian hesitates for an instant, but his instincts are tingling. “I’ll check it out,” he volunteers, giving the words enough of a bored tone that hopefully they’ll just assume he wants a change of scenery.

The second trooper shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

Cassian’s glad for the Empire’s lack of creativity as he paces away down the hall. It makes blueprints that much easier to memorize. He finds the server rom easily, palms the door open, and steps inside.

Bodhi, hunkered over a small screen protruding out of the side of the server bank, starts as the door hisses shut behind Cassian. “Uh,” he stammers, “I can explain?”

“Relax,” Cassian tells him. He reaches up and pushes the helmet off; even the musty, stale air of the server room is a relief after breathing through a filter for four days straight. “It’s me.” He pauses. “You really need to come up with a better cover story.”

Bodhi flushes. “I had one,” he admits. “I panicked.”

It’s a problem, but they don’t have time to deal with it now. “What are you doing?”

“Slicing,” Bodhi says, looking relieved at the subject change. “Sort of. Routine maintenance was scheduled for tonight, and I managed to get in just enough trouble that they sent me to deal with it.”

Cassian’s eyebrows rise. “Nice.”

“Thanks,” Bodhi says. He turns back to the terminal. “I’m already in the system. Just need to see what I can dig up about Songbird.”

Cassian nods. He hesitates, then keys the door locked behind him. It’ll give them an extra second if someone else decides to come looking, and it doesn’t really make this look any more suspicious than it already does. Bodhi glances up at the sound, then goes back to his terminal.

“How’s Jyn doing?” he asks after a long quiet moment, his fingers tapping at the keys. He glances up again, and at the expression on Cassian’s face, his own falls. “That bad, huh?”

“The sooner we get her out of here, the better,” Cassian says, a little more shortly than he meant to.

But Bodhi just nods and turns back to his work. A couple of long, tense minutes pass. Bodhi worries his lip between his teeth, staring at the screen. “Okay,” he says, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

“Good news,” Cassian says, because it’s easier than getting frustrated.

“Good news,” Bodhi repeats, “I located Songbird. She’s in B Block. I’ve switched Jyn’s work rotation so she should be on the same crew in the morning.”

“Nice going,” Cassian says, then pauses. “She?”

Bodhi nods. “That’s the bad news. There’s no name associated with the file—or if there is, it’s way above my permissions. I’m not a good enough slicer to dig any deeper, not without bringing the Imperials down on us.”

“You did great,” Cassian says, even as his mind races for a solution. He doesn’t like the idea of sending Jyn in blind. “What about a picture? Is there one with the file?”

Bodhi brightens. “I think so, yeah. Hold on.” He taps at the terminal some more, then leans forward a little, staring at the screen. “I don’t recognize her,” he admits after a moment.

“Let me see,” Cassian says, crossing to him. Bodhi scoots out of the way, and Cassian bends down to get a better look at the screen.

It takes a moment to place the face staring back at him. When he finally does, he can feel all the blood drain from his face, his eyes going so wide he’s a little afraid they’re going to pop right out.

Bodhi watches his face. “You recognize her,” he says softly. “Is it bad? Who is she?”

Cassian blinks. He swallows. “It’s not… bad,” he says. “Just…”

“Who is she?” Bodhi repeats.

Cassian tells him.

Bodhi’s eyes go as wide as dinner plates. “Oh. _Oh._ ”

Cassian rubs a gloved hand over his beard. “I need to get to Jyn. To warn her,” he says. “Can you make sure I’m assigned to that work crew?”

Bodhi nods, looking a little dazed. “Uh, yeah. Hang on.” He keys in a few commands. “There. Scrap duty.”

With an effort, Cassian shakes off the last of his stunned disbelief. “Thanks. I’d better get back.” He turns to go, then pauses. “Can you find Kaytoo and let him know?”

Bodhi nods.

“Okay,” Cassian says. “Be careful. And… be ready.”

“Good luck,” Bodhi says.

Cassian nods, once. He pulls the helmet back over his head.

—

Jyn wakes in the dim light of pre-dawn on her fifth day behind bars. A few feet away, her Twi’lek cellmate (who’s spoken maybe five words to her in the last two days) snores quietly. Jyn rolls carefully onto her back and stares up at the ceiling.

 _Liana Hallik is just a cover_ , she reminds herself firmly. _Cassian is here. Bodhi is here. Kaytoo is here. You aren’t alone._

It has the familiar cadence of a mantra at this point. Whenever her time with the Rebellion starts to feel like a dream, a cover story her mind came up with to deal with a routine prisoner transfer, she reminds herself that she can’t have imagined what happened on Scarif. Each time, it takes more repeats to drive off the cold, sinking fear that’s slowly settling into her stomach.

She reaches up to her face, prods gently at the bruise until the pain grounds her more solidly in the moment.

Footsteps outside the cell. Not remarkable in and of itself, but there isn’t usually a patrol this close to morning roll call. Jyn rolls over, watching the door through slitted eyes.

Sure enough, the Stormtrooper stops just before passing their door. Armor clanks quietly as he turns, putting his back to the wall.

Jyn gets up as quietly as she can, sidling up to the bars.

The helmet turns just slightly, just enough that he can probably see her in the corner of his field of vision. “Jyn.” His voice is muffled by the helmet, not coming through the vocalizer. _Probably turned it off_ , Jyn reasons. After all, it’s not like Stormtroopers can whisper.

“Did you find Songbird?” Jyn murmurs. Her fingers itch, aching to reach out through the bars, but instead she folds her arms across her chest. It wouldn’t satisfy her anyway, to touch a Stormtrooper’s glove.

He hesitates. “Yes,” he says, and Jyn would swear she can hear strain in his voice, muffled as it is. “You’ll be on the same work crew today. Prisoner 03812.”

Jyn nods. “Do we have an exit plan?”

“We’re working on it.” He hesitates again, glove creaking as his hand flexes. “Jyn, listen. We found Songbird’s identity.“

She pauses, taken aback at how serious he sounds. “Okay,” she says. “Who is it?”

Before he can answer, the loudspeaker blares harshly. “ALL PRISONERS PRESENT FOR ROLL CALL. ALL PRISONERS, PRESENT YOURSELVES FOR ROLL CALL.”

The floor rumbles as the cell doors slide open on all fifteen levels, the grumbling of several thousand prisoners rising to a dull roar. Jyn’s cellmate stirs, drawing her attention, and by the time she looks back Cassian is gone. She understands why; a Stormtrooper out of place during roll call will draw unwanted attention. Even so, a thread of anxiety creeps into her gut, watching him pace away down the walkway.

Just who exactly is Songbird?

She schools her face back to neutral-sullen, settling in for the long, painful process of being counted.

Halfway through, her cellmate shifts slightly, leaning a little closer. “You with the Rebellion?”

Jyn doesn’t move, keeping her eyes forward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, okay,” the Twi’lek says. “I’m just saying. I served under General Syndulla. If there’s room in your exit strategy for another…” She trails off.

Jyn hesitates for a long moment. She considers asking if the Twi’lek knows who Songbird is. Ultimately, she lets out a small sigh. “I can’t promise anything.”

The Twi’lek’s head bobs, just slightly. “Understood. I’ll be ready.” She pauses. “I’m Iola.”

Jyn doesn’t answer. The Twi’lek - Iola - doesn’t push.

Breakfast (a generous word for the gruel the prison provides) passes without incident. Jyn keeps half an eye on any nearby Stormtroopers, but Cassian’s of similar enough build that, without his voice, she can’t pick him out. If he tries to signal her, she doesn’t see it.

By the time she and a group of others from D Block are rounded up for their work assignment - scrap duty for the second day in a row, which would have been enough of a giveaway for Jyn that something strange was going on - her stomach is in knots. She cements the number Cassian gave her in the forefront of her mind; the sooner she figures out who Songbird is, the sooner she can figure out why he was so tense about it.

As it turns out, she doesn’t need the number at all. She’s scanning the faces of the other prisoners in the scrap yard when her eyes fall on one that stops her dead in her tracks, a shock like a bolt of lightning zapping down her spine and rooting her to the ground. The lines on the woman’s face do nothing to make her less achingly familiar.

“Move, prisoner,” growls a filtered voice behind her. Something hard shoves her shoulder. Tearing her eyes away from the woman’s face, Jyn moves mechanically away from the shove, rejoining the line filing into the scrap yard, and tries to figure out what she’s going to do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stranger tenses all over again at the sound of her voice, but it passes more quickly this time. “Hallik,” she says eventually. “Liana Hallik.”

If there’s anything that can be said about spending thirteen years languishing in an Imperial prison on a backwater hellhole of a planet, it’s that it’s made it easy for Lyra Erso to notice when things change.

She first noticed it a month ago. Most of her fellows probably didn’t; they keep their heads down, she’s noticed, lest they draw unwanted attention from their captors.

Lyra can’t do that. She was a scientist, once, if not as accomplished as her husband. She was an explorer and an observer. She’s never been able to turn that off. Maybe it would have made things easier if she could. Maybe it would have made the years pass more quickly.

In any case, she’d noticed the sudden tension in the guards. The shuffling of prisoners, some long-familiar faces disappearing to make room for new ones. A few more men with high-ranking pips on their tunics, watching the inmates with cold calculation in their eyes.

She’d half expected Krennic to show up. To check in and make sure that whatever it was that had rocked the Empire, he hadn’t lost his bargaining chip.

But he hadn’t. And slowly, the seed of despair she’d been keeping in check started to grow larger again.

Each night, she prayed to the Force that Galen would see through whatever lie Krennic had told him about her death on Lah’mu. Prayed that whatever small speck of conscience Orson still had would lead him, finally, to tell the truth. Prayed that somehow, something would _change_ , before the forever sameness of this place drove her mad.

And just when she was beginning to doubt… something did.

It starts like any other day. Scrap duty, which at the very least means Lyra gets to be outside, working with her hands, which automatically moves it to the top of her list. The pile never grows any shorter –apparently there was a battle over this planet once, she was told, and the scrap is from the remains of crash-landed ships – but that doesn’t deter her. She grabs a few pieces and settles in to work, scrubbing at the dirt and rust until they gleam.

The hairs on the back of her neck start to prickle a couple of hours in. Lyra puts her current piece down and, under the pretense of stretching out her back (which, to be fair, is complaining after sitting hunched over for a couple of hours), she scans the other prisoners around her.

It’s not hard to pick out the source of the feeling. A young woman, watching her from the other side of the yard. A new face, one that tugs at Lyra’s memory. _Jyn would be about that age_ , some small part of Lyra whispers, but she pushes it away. She can hope about Galen, about herself, but it’s too painful to think of her daughter. She’s had ample time by now to think about just how poor a place Saw Gerrera’s Rebellion would be for a girl of eight, even one with as much fire as Jyn.

She considers moving over to sit near the girl, see if that will spark her to speak instead of staring. But that’s too obvious. Whatever’s going on, the last thing Lyra wants to do is bring the guards down on their heads. So she sits back down and keeps working.

When they break at midday to shelter from the brutal heat of the Goshyn sun, Lyra takes her chunk of stale bread and meanders over to sit near the woman. The stranger stiffens as she approaches, tensing like she’s about to get up and run, her fingers closing so hard on her bread that it starts to crumble under the pressure. Now that she’s closer, Lyra can see the vibrant bruise spreading across one of her cheeks. She wonders if that’s what’s making her so cautious; although, while Lyra can’t put a name to the emotion in the other woman’s eyes, she’s pretty sure it’s not fear.

Lyra sits, and eats, and waits until the younger woman’s shoulders come down a little from around her ears. Then she leans back and says amicably, “Are you just going to stare all day, or introduce yourself?”

The stranger tenses all over again at the sound of her voice, but it passes more quickly this time. “Hallik,” she says eventually. “Liana Hallik.”

That voice… Lyra resists the urge to turn and look at her, but can’t quite keep from asking, “Have we met before?”

“I don’t think so,” Liana says, a little too quickly.

Lyra glances at her. Her face is completely closed off, her eyes tracking Lyra’s every movement with a strange intensity. “Alright,” Lyra says slowly. “Then why have you been watching me?”

Liana sets her bread to the side. “You’re Songbird, right?”

Lyra blinks. The name jogs a memory – back when she was still in the prison sickbay, recovering from the wound that nearly killed her. Krennic’s voice, talking to a man in the gray uniform of an officer. _Use the code name Songbird._

“Yes,” she says. “I am.”

Liana nods, her voice dropping lower. “I’m here to get you out.”

Lyra blinks. She’s not sure what she was expecting, but that wasn’t it. “Not to look a gift equus in the mouth,” she says carefully, “But why?” Something occurs to her. “Did Saw send you?”

“Not exactly,” Liana says. “The Rebellion did.”

“What would the Rebellion want with me?”

Liana shrugs. “They didn’t explain, and I didn’t ask.”

Lyra searches her face carefully, but if Liana is lying, she can’t tell. “You don’t strike me as the type to blindly follow orders.”

A flash of frustration crosses the younger woman’s face. “Do you want out of here or not?”

Lyra raises her hands a little, placating. “More than anything,” she admits.

“Good,” Liana says. She pauses, glances at the nearest guard (well out of earshot nearly twenty meters away). “We don’t have an exit strategy yet. I have a few friends in here; when we make a move, it might be one of them that comes for you.”

“How will I know?” Lyra asks.

“They’ll use a code word.”

Straightforward enough. “What is it?”

Liana glances at her. She hesitates. “It’s… stardust.”

The word hits like a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of Lyra in a gasp. By the time she recovers, Liana is up and moving, heading for a nearby group of prisoners. “Wait,” Lyra manages, but the other woman doesn’t stop.

“Oi,” Liana yells, coming to a stop next to a startled-looking Aqualish and a few other aliens Lyra doesn’t have names for. Whatever else she says is lost under the ringing in Lyra’s ears, but it must be pretty vile, because a moment later Liana is buried under three furious-looking fellow prisoners. Others around them hoot and cheer one side or the other on.

The Stormtroopers are there a moment later, dragging the prisoners apart with judicious use of shock batons. When the scene settles, Liana sags between two troopers, each gripping one of her arms.

“We don’t tolerate infighting here,” the Stormtrooper sergeant says. “Take her to solitary. The Warden can deal with her in the morning.”

Lyra sits, stunned, watching the troopers drag Liana away. Her mind whirls.

 _Did Galen send you?_ she asks silently as Liana and her escorts disappear into the dark interior of the prison.

And then, carefully, so carefully: _Did Jyn?_

Of course, no one answers. Lyra tucks the fragile thought away safely, knowing full well that it’ll come back to haunt her in the darkness of her cell that night.

As soon as the hubbub dies down, the other prisoners lose interest, turning back to their food or a catnap before the work begins again. Lyra drags her eyes away from the doorway, mind working more quickly than it has in a long time. A little thrill goes through her, mixed with confusion and an itching, yearning curiosity. It’s been a long time since a puzzle gripped her like this.

She turns back to face forward, munching on her bread idly, and in doing so catches a glimpse of something strange out of the corner of her eye. The Stormtrooper closest to her spot hadn’t moved from his position – not all that unusual, considering how outnumbered Liana and the other fighters had been even without him. What is unusual is that his head is turned towards the doorway the guards left through.

To anyone else, that wouldn’t seem like much. But Lyra’s had a lot of time to watch her captors. Stormtroopers on guard almost always face forward. Fights aren’t so unusual that he’d care about the one who started it—

unless he’s not a Stormtrooper at all.

The helmet twitches slightly towards her. Then turns to a more neutral position, shoulders straightening almost imperceptibly.

Lyra hides a thoughtful smile behind her food. It might be nothing, just wishful thinking on her part. Or it might be confirmation that Liana does indeed have help.

It might be a clue that Lyra really, finally has a chance to get out of this place.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She shakes her head and, to his surprise, tries a shaky smile. “I don’t think I would’ve believed you,” she says quietly. Then her gaze sharpens. “Did you know? Before we came here?”
> 
> “That she was the Songbird?”
> 
> “No,” Jyn says, “That she was alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the delay!

The fallout of Jyn’s meeting with her mother reminds Cassian how _nice_ it is to have a team to work with. A hurried meeting with Bodhi in the lavatory on the eighth floor of B Block gets him and Kay reassigned to solitary that night. It’s almost too easy; as he paces towards S Block, where Jyn’s been for most of the day, the back of his neck itches with the certainty that it can’t go this smoothly. Something’s going to go wrong.

Not that it’s been smooth sailing so far. _Lyra Erso_. He still can’t believe it. Every ounce of intelligence the Rebellion was ever able to dig up said she was dead, killed in the altercation on Lah’mu when Galen Erso was taken to work on the Death Star. There was never even a hint that she could be alive.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. The important thing is that she is. Honestly, Jyn’s first meeting with her went about as well as he could have hoped. Guilt still roils in his chest; as he walks, he turns the day over in his mind, trying to figure out if he missed an opportunity somewhere to warn her. If he could have eased that blow somehow.

He rounds the corner into S Block, which turns out to be a single long hallway lined with solid-panel doors. The sight of Kay’s habitual slouch sends a pang of relief through him; that’s one potential issue out of the way.

“I’ll take it from here,” he says to the trooper currently standing guard. “Anything I need to know?”

The Stormtrooper shrugs. “Been pretty quiet. Only a couple of prisoners in tonight. Shouldn’t have any trouble.”

Cassian nods, and the other trooper paces away.

Kay turns his head to look at him. “You’re late.”

If he is, it’s only by a minute or two. It doesn’t matter. “Can you loop the cameras?”

The droid sniffs. “I already did.” He looks towards the departed Stormtrooper. “As far as central security can see, he’s still standing right where he was, and will be all night.”

“Won’t they notice the lack of shift change?” Cassian asks.

“I calculate a 97% chance that they will not,” Kay says. “Stormtroopers aren’t exactly known for their attention to detail. Besides, on the 3% chance that they do, there is an additional 86% chance that they won’t care.”

Those are pretty good odds. And Cassian’s getting antsy. “Alright. Keep watch. I’m going to talk to Jyn.” He turns for the cell.

“Cassian,” Kaytoo says, and he almost sounds _troubled_. Cassian turns back. Kay looks at him. “I ran many calculations around the Songbird’s possible identity. Lyra Erso was a 0.2% chance, at best.”

That’s… honestly more than Cassian would have expected. He gives Kay a wry smile. “Come on, Kay. You should know by now; sometimes, the numbers lie.”

Kay tucks his chin in towards his chest. “That is an uncomfortable thought,” he admits.

“Tell me about it,” Cassian says. He detours long enough to put a hand on the droid’s arm, then heads for Jyn’s cell.

When he keys the door open, she’s lying on the bare metal cot against the back wall. By the time it hisses shut behind him, she’s upright, arms folded across her chest, a wary look in her eye. Cassian wastes no time in pushing the helmet off over his head, dropping it carelessly to the ground beside him.

For a long moment, neither of them move. Cassian’s every cell screams at him to go to her, to hold her, but she’s closed off in a way that reminds him of the night after the Death Star, when he found her in the medbay. Her eyes are full of fear, and anger, and uncertainty.

“I’m sorry,” he says into the silence. “I tried to—I should’ve tried harder, but—“

She shakes her head and, to his surprise, tries a shaky smile. “I don’t think I would’ve believed you,” she says quietly. Then her gaze sharpens. “Did you know? Before we came here?”

“That she was the Songbird?”

“No,” Jyn says, “That she was alive.”

Cassian rocks back a little. “No,” he says. “Jyn, I had no idea. Everything we ever found said she died on Lah’mu.”

She looks at him for a long moment. “Guess Rebel Intelligence isn’t infallible.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “You’re surprised?”

She huffs out a little laugh. “I shouldn’t be.”

“Jyn,” he says, and takes a careful step towards her. His heart pounds. “You believe me, right? I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”

“I know,” she says, with an immediacy that soothes his fear. “I know you wouldn’t.”

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Good.”

Her eyes grow far away for a moment, her hand rising to touch the necklace she isn’t wearing. Her fingers clench on empty air, and she looks up to meet his eyes again. “I don’t care what Draven says,” she says, in a voice that crackles like flames. “We’re not killing her.”

“Of course not,” Cassian says, and the relief in her eyes is worth the pang of hurt that goes through him at the thought that she’d believe he’d ever even consider it. For once, the Intelligence officer and the man are in complete agreement. The former knows that Lyra Erso cannot possibly have any information that could endanger the Rebellion. The latter recoils in horror at the very question of it.

He already got her father killed. He’ll be even more damned than he already is if he lets her mother slip away from her now.

“I promise, Jyn,” he says. Her head snaps up. Her eyes are glistening, her jaw clenched and throat tight with the effort of holding back her tears. His own throat closes up. He holds his arms out wordlessly.

She comes to him, and he curses the armor he still wears for keeping him from feeling her warmth against him. He settles for ripping off the gloves. The first thing he touches with bare skin in nearly a week is her tangled hair, the warm skin of her neck. He cups her jaw, and she looks up enough that he can press his forehead against hers.

“I promise,” he repeats. “We’ll get her out of here. You won’t lose her again.”

Jyn lets out a shuddering breath. “Damn straight.”

Cassian laughs, a short, sharp bark of a sound.

Jyn’s mouth curls slightly in a smile, then she sighs. “How long can you stay?”

 _Can_ and _should_ are two entirely separate questions. But Kay is outside and can warn them if something goes wrong. And though she’s doing a halfway decent job of hiding it, Cassian can hear the faint note of desperation in her voice.

“Until the morning shift change,” he says.

She makes a dissatisfied noise in the back of her throat, but she nods. She raps on his chestplate. “That’s a few hours. You sure you want to spend it in armor?”

With her help, the process of taking it off goes quickly. As soon as the last piece falls, Jyn presses against his chest and leans up to kiss him. The taste of her mouth makes his knees go weak.

They settle against the wall, Jyn tucked up under his arm, her head resting on his shoulder. His hand strokes idly along that one lock of hair that always seems to escape her bun, tucking it back behind her ear. Her fingers run lightly over his thigh, tracing complex, ephemeral patterns through the thin fabric of his undersuit.

“What happened earlier?” Cassian asks after a while. Based on Lyra Erso’s rather calm reaction, he has his suspicions.

“I told her we were here to get her out,” Jyn says.

Okay. Might as well just bite the bullet. “Did you tell her who you are?”

She tenses, just slightly. “No,” she admits.

Cassian hums thoughtfully. “Why not?”

Jyn is quiet for a long moment. Her fingers clench on his thigh.

“Jyn?”

“She left me,” Jyn says, a world of pain and anger in those three simple words. “On Lah’mu. We were clear, and she _left_ me to go back for my father.”

Cassian hesitates. “She loved him.”

Jyn pulls away; not far, just enough so that she can turn to look him in the eye. “I was eight years old,” she says, eyes intent. “I was a _child_ , and she left me alone to throw herself on a blaster.”

He pauses. “You have a point,” he says. “But why lie to her now?”

She makes a frustrated sound. “It’s easier.” He opens his mouth, and she holds up a hand. “Liana Hallik is a cover, but for a long time that’s who I was. Not Jyn Erso. If I can be Liana for now, I can keep from being so angry at her that I… do something I regret.”

To someone unfamiliar with cover identities, that might seem like nonsense. But Cassian’s intimately familiar with the mental hoops he’s had to jump through to create a convincing cover, so he just nods. “I understand.”

She tilts her head, studying him. “You do, don’t you.” The angry tension drains from her shoulders, leaving only exhaustion behind. “I don’t want to be angry,” she admits. “I want to be happy that she’s alive. And I am.”

“You can be angry, too,” Cassian says.

She quirks a small smile. “Good. Because I am.” She sighs and slides back over beside him; Cassian gladly puts his arm back around her.

“I might’ve given it away,” Jyn admits a few minutes later. “I gave her a code word, so she’d know which Imperials to trust.”

Cassian raises an eyebrow. “What’s the word?”

“Stardust.”

He nods slowly. “That might do it.”

She rests her hand on his chest, rubbing her thumb back and forth lightly. “It was the only thing that came to mind.”

“You know,” he says, carefully, “You’ve never told me what it means. I know it has to do with your father, but…”

“I will,” she says. “But not here. Not in this place.”

He nods.

Neither of them speaks for a few minutes. Then, Cassian remembers. “Did the warden come already?”

“No,” Jyn says, sounding utterly nonchalant. “He’ll probably come by in the morning. They like to let you stew.”

Cassian pauses. The way she’s sitting right now, he can’t see it, but the bruise on her cheek stands out stark in his memory. “Jyn…”

She pats his chest gently. “I’ll be okay.”

“You’re already hurt,” he points out.

She lifts a shoulder. “I got that for mouthing off. It’s nothing to worry about. I know how to play sullen-but-contrite well enough.”

“If you’re sure,” he says reluctantly.

“I am,” she says, and leans up to press a brief kiss to his cheek. Then, she draws in a breath. “I almost forgot. My cellmate, the Twi’lek? Used to fight under General Syndulla.”

Cassian blinks. “Really?”

“So she says.”

“Why would she tell you?”

Jyn blows out a breath. “She kind of overheard us this morning.”

That… could’ve been very bad. If Jyn’s cellmate had been more inclined to rat them out to the Imperials…

Cassian shakes off the train of thought. No use thinking of hypotheticals. “I guess we should get her out, too, then.”

“I didn’t promise anything,” Jyn says. “But.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Cassian says.

Jyn nods against his shoulder. Then, a little wryly, “I don’t suppose you have a plan?”

He smiles. “I might have an idea or two.”


	6. Chapter 6

Neither of them want Cassian to leave, but when Kay raps on the door to tell them that morning shift change is five minutes away, neither of them fight it. Jyn helps him get the armor back on, his body disappearing under anonymous white plastoid, and can’t wait to be done with the whole charade. 

Still, the night together (the warmth of his skin, the soft, familiar sound of his voice as they hashed out the escape plan together) leaves her more rejuvenated than sleep would have. When she was younger, she muses, she would’ve seen that as weakness. She’d thought for so long that the only way to be strong, the only way to _survive_ , was to do so alone. 

She’s never been so pleased to be wrong. 

At least the Warden doesn’t keep her waiting long. Not twenty minutes after the door closes behind Cassian, it opens again to a pair of Stormtroopers, who pull her unceremoniously out into the hallway. 

The Warden turns out to be a tall, rail-thin man with a truly unfortunate mustache, who glowers at her from eyes the color of Lah’mu groundwater. “Less than a week in my prison, and already you’re picking fights.”

If she capitulates too easily, it’ll look suspicious. She squares her shoulders, glares defiance somewhere in the direction of his knees. “They looked at me funny.”

“Did they.” 

Pain lances through Jyn’s side as one of the troopers jabs her with a shock baton. It locks her jaw tight, so all that comes out is a pained, sustained groan. The other trooper’s hand on her arm is the only thing holding her up when they pull it away. 

“I’m not unreasonable, Hallik,” the Warden says as she catches her breath. “Consider this a warning. I am responsible for ten thousand prisoners within these walls, all of them scum like you. You do not want to be the one drawing my attention.”

Jyn grits her teeth, but she casts her eyes down, letting her shoulders slump a little. “Message received.”

The Warden eyes her for another long moment, then harrumphs. “Good.” He accepts a holopad from a flunky hovering behind him, eyes scanning the screen. He flicks his fingers at the Stormtroopers holding Jyn. “We’re done here.”

—

Playing the part of an Imperial tech is both harder and (scarily) easier than Bodhi anticipated. Harder because the rigid structures that had once been as familiar to him as breathing now chafe at his fledgling confidence, because he’s had a taste of not having to live at the bottom of the oppression totem pole and going back feels like falling headfirst into hell. Easier because he was an Imperial flunky for a lot longer than he’s been a Rebel, and his body still remembers the habitual hunch of shoulders, the way to look without seeing, let his eyes slide away from the way some of the Stormtroopers abuse their power over the prisoners of Goshyn. 

What helps—more than knowing that he’s not alone here, and that this is only for a short time—what helps the most is that he no longer _wants_ to look away. His heart used to tell him _lay low, don’t draw attention to yourself;_ now, his heart says _this is wrong._ His heart says _do something about it._ His heart says _fight_. 

He can’t act on it, not without jeopardizing their mission, but that change in instincts is all the proof he needs that he’s not the Bodhi Rook who watched while the Empire destroyed his home. Not anymore. 

That doesn’t stop him from worrying about his friends. He spends the night after the revelation of Songbird’s identity fretting, aching at the thought of how Jyn must feel.

The next morning, when Kaytoo passes him a message that Cassian wants to meet in the server room, Bodhi has to check the impulse to sprint halfway across the prison to find him. Even so, as he gets closer and closer, he finds his stride growing faster, until he’s nearly running when he reaches the door to the server room. He keys the door open and steps inside—

to find the room empty, save for the quiet whirring of the server racks. Bodhi stops, blinking. The door hisses shut behing him. 

_Did something go wrong?_ he wonders, stepping carefully forward into the room. He looks around for some clue; maybe Cassian was called away before Bodhi could get here. Maybe there’s a message hidden somewhere. 

He’s wedged halfway under one of the towers when the sound of the door opening makes his heart seize up in his chest. He freezes. 

The footsteps stop. “Uh… Bodhi?”

With the vocalizer distortion, he’s not 100% sure he recognizes the voice, but no one else would call him that. “Cassian,” he says, and squirms out from under the servers. “I thought…”

Cassian’s helmet is off by the time Bodhi gets to his feet, the Major eying him with a slightly bemused expression. “You must’ve moved fast,” he says after a moment, “I only sent Kay to find you an hour ago.”

Oh. Bodhi coughs and shrugs. “I… guess I’m ready to be out of this place.”

Cassian’s face clears a little. “Tell me about it.”

“How’s Jyn?” Bodhi asks.

Cassian sets the helmet aside. “Better than I expected, honestly,” he says. “But we need to get her and her mother—all of us—out of here.”

“Agreed,” Bodhi says fervently. He turns to the server console expectantly. “I assume you have a plan?”

The corner of Cassian’s mouth quirks. “Did you read the mission reports from Wobani?”

“Most of them?” Bodhi says, “But all I really remember is that Jyn clocked Melshi with a shovel.” It’s honestly the most Jyn Erso thing he’s ever heard, to hit somebody who’s trying to rescue her in the face with the first thing she can get her hands on. 

By the amusement in Cassian’s eyes, he’s thinking the same thing. “I think we can do something similar here, minus the shovel.” He drums his fingers on one thigh. “A couple of times a week, work crews are sent outside the walls to gather scrap from battlefields nearby. Can you get them onto one of those crews?”

Bodhi nods. “Should be easy enough.” He hits a key to wake up the console. 

Cassian comes to lean over his shoulder, watching as he scrolls through the screens. “Oh, also,” he says, “If you can, move Jyn’s cellmate to the crew as well.”

Bodhi blinks, and taps in a few commands. “Iola Mekzove?” He brings up a picture; if he’s supposed to recognize either the name or the face, he doesn’t. 

Cassian nods. “She served under General Syndulla,” he says, and shrugs, “or so she says.”

“How many Rebels are there in this place?” Bodhi muses, even as he assigns the Twi’lek to the crew in question. 

Cassian goes quiet. Bodhi glances up at him, and finds the Major’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Too many,” he says eventually. _And we can’t save them all_ , he doesn’t say, but he doesn’t have to. 

The thought sends a chill through Bodhi’s chest. To leave allies in this place feels wrong, feels like a betrayal… but they’re only four people. They don’t have the resources to free so many, even if they could pick them out from the crowd. The only way to save them, Bodhi thinks, is to bring down the Empire. And they can’t do that if they get captured here. 

Cassian straightens and moves away as he continues to work. It only takes a few minutes before Bodhi leans back from the console. “There. They’ll be on the same transport tomorrow, headed for the southern wastes.”

“Good,” Cassian says. “Now, there’s something else you’ll need to do.”

—

Goshyn City is nothing special, smaller even than Jedha City was and far grungier, but the simple fact that it’s outside the towering walls of the prison makes it a breath of fresh air to Bodhi. He keeps his head down as he paces down the main street, safely anonymous now that he’s ditched his Imperial uniform (and good riddance to it, too), keeping an eye out for any kind of sign of where Chirrut and Baze might have gone. 

It’s harder than he expected. It’s not a big place; leaving aside the slums (which he’s reasonably sure aren’t where the Guardians would’ve set up shop, especially since they’re on the opposite side from the prison), it’s only about as big as the Temple District was. Cramped though it is, it’s also _cluttered_ ; there are people everywhere even in the ‘nicer’ parts of the city, shops and stalls lining the streets with their goods spread out around them. In the couple of hours he spends crisscrossing back and forth through the streets, Bodhi’s pretty sure he would’ve gotten lost without the walls of the prison in the distance to keep him oriented. 

If Jedha hadn’t been destroyed, he wonders as he ducks around a hovercart full of goods, would it have become like this place?

He’s not sure if that would’ve been better or worse. 

Finally, just as his feet start to ache in earnest, a flash of telltale red catches his eye. A closer look reveals a scrap of crimson cloth, tucked carefully under a stone at the corner of a building. Bodhi doesn’t pick it up. Instead, he glances up at the sign over the door; a cantina, by the look of it, with a symbol that looks like a stylized svaper.

He heads inside. His first impression of the inside is that it’s crowded; not with people, seeing as it’s still only early afternoon, but with _stuff_. The tables are packed in tightly, with barely enough space to sidle between the stools tucked partially underneath. The ceiling is low, fans spinning just a few inches above Bodhi’s head to move the stagnant air. 

Bodhi gives his eyes a moment to adjust to the dimmer interior light. There are only three people inside. As he slides through the tables towards the bar, Bodhi does his best to examine each of them. His heart sinks as he realizes none of them are the Guardians. Two aren’t even human, and the one who is is a scarred woman nursing a cup of something fluorescent green. 

With effort, he quells a rising tide of panic. They can’t spend all day, every day in the cantina, he reasons. That’d be too suspicious. His best bet is to wait and trust that they’ll show up. 

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asks as Bodhi steps up. 

“Uh,” Bodhi says. “Something not too strong?” The bartender’s face flickers, and he hastens to add, “Got an evening shift. I show up drunk, I’ll get fired, you know?”

The bartender grunts. “Fair enough.” 

A few minutes later, Bodhi settles into a table with a decent view of the door with a cup full of something vaguely sweet and fairly mild. And he waits. 

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to wait long. Whether it’s sheer luck or the Guardians have the place under surveillance, Bodhi’s only there about ten minutes before the door whooshes open to reveal Baze, still dressed in the unobtrusive gear that suggests ‘bounty hunter’ without being too overt about it. Behind him is Chirrut in his usual robes, minus the flashier red sash. He doesn’t look quite right without it, Bodhi thinks with a frown. Baze trades a brief nod with the bartender, then both Guardians weave through the tables to sit at his. 

Baze looks him over for a long moment. “Good to see you in one piece, pilot,” he rumbles. 

“You too,” Bodhi says, and surprises himself a little with how fervent the words are. He hadn’t realized, under the stress and anxiety of being in the prison, but he’d been worried about the Guardians, too. 

Chirrut reaches out and pats Bodhi’s hand where it rests next to his cup. “We were beginning to get bored,” he confides. 

Baze’s mouth quirks, but he doesn’t comment. “What’s going on?”

Bodhi gives them the quickest rundown he can manage; finding out who Songbird is, and Cassian’s plan to pull Jyn and the others out from the transport outside the walls. 

When he’s done, Chirrut fingers the kyber necklace thoughtfully. “Lyra Erso,” he murmurs. His brow flickers. Then he drops his hand back to his lap. “So. How do we stop the transport?”

“Cassian’s planning to take it over from within,” Bodhi says, then hesitates. “But… I don’t think it would hurt to have a plan B.”

“Never hurts to have a plan B,” Baze agrees. “Especially when it involves explosives.”

The less Bodhi thinks about that, the better. “Right. So. Probably best I don’t bring the ship in until after the transport’s already stopped, so we don’t tip them off.”

Both Guardians nod. Baze levers himself up from the table. “I’m going to go get our backup plan.”

“Okay,” Bodhi says. “Chirrut and I can go scope out the area.”

Chirrut catches Baze’s hand, giving it a brief squeeze, and smiles. “It’s a good plan. The Force is with us.”

Bodhi watches Baze go, and thinks, _I sure hope so._


	7. Chapter 7

In all the years she’s been imprisoned, one of the few things Lyra’s never figured out is why she’s always had a cell to herself. The other prisoners are often crammed in like sardines, even as new cell blocks get built to make room for the never-ending influx of new labor for the Empire, but the second bed in her tiny chamber has always been empty. She’s gone back and forth more times than she can count on whether that’s a good thing or not.

On the night after her meeting with Liana, she’s grateful for it. It means there’s no one to see her toss and turn, or (when she finally gives up on sleep) to grumble at her pacing. It’s only five steps from the bars to the back wall, but she’s always found it easier to think clearly when she’s moving.

 _Stardust_. A message, clearly; the chances of that word being chosen by chance, with no knowledge of the meaning it carries for her and her family, are downright astronomical. It must be a message. But from who?

She pictures Liana again in her mind. The wariness in her eyes, the bruise shading one cheek in painful purple and red. But underneath… Even after hours upon hours of consideration, Lyra can’t decide if the lines of Liana’s face are actually familiar, or if it’s just wishful thinking.

 _Think it through_. If Galen sent these people, it would mean that he’d not only been rescued from Krennic by the Rebellion (despite having very few ties beyond Saw), but that he’d somehow found out she wasn’t dead, and that he’d convinced the Rebellion to send its people after her.

Lyra’s all too familiar with hope, but even she has to concede that Galen seems more unlikely by the minute. Which leaves…

She traces the lines of Liana’s face in her mind. She can’t quite bring herself to even think it – it’s too fragile a hope, too laced with horror and wonder and anxiety. But it’s there, all the same, teasing at the edges of her mind.

When the first light starts to creep over the prison walls and exhaustion drags at her eyelids, she tries once more to sleep. She might be able to catch a couple of hours before the morning headcount. She eventually manages a light doze, more by force of will than anything else.

The sound of Stormtrooper boots passing by is routine enough that it barely rouses her. The rustle of something hitting the ground as they go by, however, snaps her awake.

A moment later, she curls back into her bed, her prize tucked carefully out of sight of the door before she takes her first real look at it. It turns out to be a crumpled scrap of flimsi, with just a few words scratched out on it:

_Fresher. 1100._

A room number? No, a time, Lyra decides. Late morning. Presumably, a meeting with one of Liana’s allies.

She crumples the flimsi back up and tucks it deep into the crack between her bed and the wall. For once, she muses wryly, morning headcount can’t come soon enough. Kitchen duty (never one of her favorites, seeing as it means she’s stuck inside all day) passes similarly quickly. She half expects one of the overseers to deny her request to visit the fresher, but the man just waves a hand carelessly.

Lyra rounds the corner to the fresher with her heart pounding against her ribs, and finds—

A KX-series droid, standing with its back to the wall. Lyra freezes. She’s seen what those droids are capable of. If there’s one here, waiting for her… An icy tendril of fear snakes up her spine.

Its head swivels towards her, glowing eyes dilating slightly. “There you are,” it says. Lyra blinks. She’s only ever heard them speak in a bored sort of monotone, but this one actually sounds _annoyed_. When she doesn’t respond, it makes a metallic sound that strikes her as a sigh. “What are you waiting for? Go on.”

She moves, more out of reflex than anything else. Things must’ve changed, she thinks as she sidles past the droid, if the Rebellion has the kind of resources necessary to hack an Imperial droid.

Inside the fresher is more what she was expecting to find: a Stormtrooper, leaning against the sinks in a way that strikes her less as casual and more as just tired. He straightens when she comes in.

For a long moment, neither of them speak. She can’t even tell if the trooper is looking at her, behind those opaque black lenses. Lyra folds her arms across her chest. “Your pet droid nearly gave me a heart attack,” she says.

That seems to snap him out of it. “He’s not a pet,” the trooper says. Lyra catches the faint edge of an accent, even through the vocal filter. “He’s my friend.”

Lyra’s eyebrows climb into her hairline. “That’s… not a word I expected to hear in this context.”

The trooper lets out a little huff of a laugh. “It’s a long story.”

“Must be.” Lyra eyes him. “It’s hard to talk to a helmet,” she says after a moment.

The trooper hesitates. “Right.” Lyra watches with interest as he reaches up and, slowly, pulls the helmet off.

A little pang of disappointment goes through her when the man underneath turns out to be a stranger. She didn’t really expect any different, but it would’ve been nice to see a familiar face. Still, she commits his to memory: light brown skin, facial hair clipped close, sweat-damp dark hair pressed close to his head by the helmet, and surprisingly soft brown eyes.

“I don’t suppose you’d tell me your name,” she says.

He pauses to set the helmet down by the sink, turning away slightly as he does. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he says. “Better you don’t know, if we get caught.”

Lyra frowns. “You don’t think I know how to keep a secret?”

“Fair enough.” But still, he hesitates. Lyra resists the urge to push him, and is finally rewarded when he looks up and back to meet her eyes. “Major Cassian Andor. Rebel Intelligence.”

“High rank to be sent after a nobody like me,” Lyra says carefully.

“That’s… also a long story,” Andor replies, just as carefully. Some emotion flits across his face too quickly for Lyra to name, but enough to give her the sneaking suspicion he’s hiding something. Then he wipes it away. His eyes flicker up over her shoulder; a glance behind her shows the chrono on the wall above the door. “I’ll tell you it later,” he continues, “We don’t have time right now.”

Reluctantly, Lyra nods. “Then why are we here?”

The last of the strange emotion behind Andor’s eyes clears, his tone turning more businesslike. “Tomorrow, you’ll be assigned to the scrap collection crew outside the walls. The extraction will take place on the way.”

It’s a sensible plan, even to Lyra’s inexperienced mind. The prison itself is too well-guarded; a transport, on the other hand, is by definition less secure. “What about—Liana?” she says, tripping over the name slightly. “Is she alright?”

“She’s fine,” Andor says, almost too quickly. “She’ll be there, too.” The door chimes. Lyra jumps; Andor stiffens. When no one comes in, he exhales, his eyes flickering up to the chrono again. “We’re out of time. I’m sorry.” He reaches for the helmet, pulls it back on over his head.

“Wait,” Lyra says as he steps past her. She doesn’t really expect him to stop, but suddenly there are a thousand questions swirling in her mind, and she can’t quite set words to any of them.

But he does stop, so she blurts the only coherent question she can pick out. “Liana. That’s not her real name, is it?”

He doesn’t answer for so long that she’s a little afraid he’s just going to leave. But then: “No,” he says quietly. “It’s not.”

\--

One of the most important skills Saw Gerrera ever taught her, in Jyn’s opinion, is how to sleep before a big operation. She can still hear it in his gravelly, grave voice. _You’re no good to anyone if you fall asleep at the scope._ Anyone he caught staying up late before a big mission was made to run laps of the base until they practically passed out from exhaustion, until it was just easier to learn how to sleep through the inevitable pre-op anxiety.

As a result, the morning of the extraction, Jyn wakes to the sound of the prison’s first wake-up call well-rested and ready as hell to get out of there.

“Was glad to see you show up last night,” Iola says, splashing water on her face from the room’s tiny sink. “Got a little worried you’d been caught.”

“I’m touched,” Jyn says without looking up. She pauses to gather her hair into its usual bun, then says, as casually as she can, “Today. Be ready.”

Iola doesn’t even pause, though Jyn can see the muscles in her shoulders tighten. “When?”

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Jyn says. And then the loudspeaker blares, and they step outside for the headcount.

Which feels like it takes at least three times as long as usual. Patience has never been Jyn’s strong suit, but she reins it in, keeps her head down, and suffers quietly through an interminable morning routine. It doesn’t help that this is the point when all the moving pieces have to come together. There’s a thousand things that could so easily go wrong.

Finally, they’re divided up into their work groups for the day. Jyn, Iola, and a couple of others are herded off into a dimly-lit hangar, where a line of clunky, utilitarian vehicles and a few dozen other prisoners wait. Jyn scans the crowd; no chance of picking Cassian or Kay out from among the other Stormtroopers and droids dotting the room, but as they’re divided into clusters of a half dozen to go into each transport, Lyra Erso appears out of the crowd. A little jolt goes through Jyn’s chest when their eyes meet. She looks away first.

She can feel her mother’s eyes still on her, but she doesn’t look up again. Not when an overseer checks each of them against his roster. Not when they load onto the transport. Not when a trooper locks a pair of binders around her wrists, linked by a chain to the floor between her feet. Just like Wobani.

The engine rumbles to life, and a moment later Jyn’s outside the prison walls for the first time in over a week. Even inside the transport, the knowledge that she’s almost out lifts a weight from her shoulders. She wonders if Lyra feels it, too, after over a decade of confinement.

Without raising her head, Jyn scans the cabin. Six prisoners, three to a side. Jyn’s in the middle of hers, Iola on one side, a stranger on the other. A Stormtrooper in each corner—armed with blasters now, rather than the shocksticks they’d favored inside the prison walls. She doesn’t see Kaytoo; maybe he’s in the front compartment, helping navigate? From what she saw of the planet on their approach, there wasn’t much in the way of landmarks outside Goshyn City itself.

There’s nothing she can do about it now. She has to trust that Cassian and Kaytoo know what they’re doing, that Bodhi made it out, that he and the Guardians are in place when Cassian makes his move. That doesn’t stop her from eying each of the Stormtroopers in turn, looking for any sign of which one is _hers_.

They’re half an hour out when the transport grinds to a stop.

A chill shoots up Jyn’s spine. All four troopers look towards the front—one even grumbles, “What’s going on?” in a voice that’s definitely not Cassian’s—but only the one in front of her and to the right glances her way first.

The door to the driver’s compartment hisses open. Jyn’s heart sinks; framed in it are two Stormtroopers, blasters raised, and the Warden.

Who has his own blaster pistol aimed squarely at Jyn’s head.

For a long moment, no one moves. Finally, uncertainly, the same Stormtrooper as before says, “Sir?”

The Warden doesn’t look at him, keeping his eyes on Jyn. When he does speak, it’s not angry, or even taunting, like Jyn would expect. Instead, it’s almost admiring. “The droid was an interesting twist.”

Dread washes through her, pins and needles tingling in her fingers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, as evenly as she can. But she can’t help but let her eyes flicker past him, towards the front compartment of the transport. Where, under the arm of one of the troopers in the door, she can just barely make out a familiar form frozen in the copilot’s seat.

She looks back up. The smug smile curling the corner of the Warden’s mouth makes her stomach churn. “Not to worry,” he says. “It’s only a restraining bolt. I’m very interested to find out how you managed to hack an Imperial droid.”

Jyn clenches her fists, but she gives the Warden a wry smirk. If he doesn’t know she had other allies, she’s sure as hell not going to be the one to tell him so. “Trade secret.”

“You’re full of those,” he says. “Like why you’re so interested in her, of all people.” He doesn’t have to gesture; they both know full well he means Lyra. “And,” he continues, “which one of these troopers is a traitor.”

The pit drops out of Jyn’s stomach.

One of the Stormtroopers lurches, like he’s going to get up, but quickly drops back down when one of the Warden’s men turns his blaster his way.

The Warden doesn’t look away, and neither does Jyn. She refuses to be the one to break eye contact first, and besides, she’s too worried she’d inadvertently look to Cassian and give him away. She draws on every bit of training she ever had, every day spent behind bars or pretending to be someone she’s not, every time she’s had to stuff her emotions down inside her, and just barely keeps the fear eating away at her from showing on her face.

 _This is it_ , a quiet, tired voice whispers in the back of her mind. _This is where you lose him_.

 _Maybe,_ she growls back, _but it won’t be because I didn’t fight._

When she doesn’t rise to the bait, the Warden’s smile finally fades. “Fine, then,” he says. “We’ll have plenty of time to figure it out.” He signals behind him with the hand not holding his blaster. The transport rumbles back to life. Jyn’s back presses into the wall as the vehicle turns, presumably to head back to the prison.

Through it all, Jyn keeps her eyes on the Warden, and the yawning barrel of his blaster pistol, watching for an opening. Her hands might be bound, but if she times it right, she might be able to land a good kick, give Cassian a chance to make a move.

But he doesn’t waver, apparently happy to stand his ground for the ride back. Across from Jyn, the trooper she’s 95% sure is Cassian holds very still.

Jyn glares at the Warden, heart pounding in her ears, and hopes with every ounce of faith she has that Bodhi, Chirrut, and Baze have a plan B.

 


	8. Chapter 8

“Something’s wrong,” Chirrut says, voice crackling tinnily over the commlink tucked into Baze’s pocket. 

Baze fumbles the comm out without looking up from the tiny silhouette of the transport in the scope of his blaster. “What?”

“Something’s _wrong_ ,” Chirrut repeats forcefully.

He shifts, scanning the scope across the road below his perch until he finds Chirrut’s familiar form. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

In the scope, Chirrut raises his hand. Something sparkles just beneath his closed fist. Baze zooms in, until he can make out Jyn’s kyber necklace dangling from the cord wrapped around Chirrut’s fingers.

A chill settles in Baze’s gut. He looks back at the transport. “It’s stopped. That’s what it’s supposed to do, isn’t it?”

“I know what I sense, Baze Malbus,” Chirrut says, his voice tinged with a bit of annoyance and a whole lot of concern. 

That’s what Baze was afraid of. He’s not questioning Chirrut because he doesn’t believe him; he’s questioning because he desperately wants him to be wrong this time.

But he’s never wrong. 

Baze sets his eye back to the scope. For a long minute, he watches the transport, waiting for any kind of signal, any sign at all of what’s going on inside. 

Nothing. 

Baze’s commlink crackles again, this time with Bodhi’s anxious voice. “What’s going on? Have they stopped?”

“Yes,” Baze says slowly. “But—wait.” The transport is moving again now. With a slow, creeping dread, Baze watches as it executes a ponderous turn. “It’s going back,” he says, to both Bodhi and Chirrut. 

“Back where?” Bodhi asks. “To the prison?”

“I think it’s time for plan B,” Baze says by way of confirmation. Then something even worse catches his attention. He raises his head from the scope to check with his own eyes. The dread grows inside him. “It’s not the only one.”

“What?”

Baze checks again through the scope, but the view hasn’t changed: a second transport, this one with the smaller, sleeker silhouette of a troop transport, has peeled off from the main convoy and turned back to accompany the other. “Troop transport,” he says shortly. “Left flank.”

A pause. “I hear it,” Chirrut says. 

Bodhi mutters a curse that gets lost in a burst of static. Baze knows exactly why; they’d only brought one explosive. A troop carrier that size would have a dozen Stormtroopers at least, maybe more. If they don’t take it out, there’s no way they get out of this alive. 

“I’ll have to use the ship,” Bodhi says. Over the comm, Baze can make out the rumble of its engines starting up, the clicking of switches as the pilot works. 

He thinks quickly. Strategy’s not his strongest suit, but Chirrut’s expertise is limited to hand-to-hand, and Bodhi… he’s not green. Not anymore. But he’s young ( _so young_ ), still. 

The U-wing’s guns are built to penetrate starship hulls; the armored transports don’t stand a chance. Collateral damage is a very real concern, especially once the fight breaks out. 

“We’ll use the shaped charge on the prisoner transport,” Baze decides. “And the ship to stop the troops.” 

“Got it,” Bodhi says. 

“Ready,” Chirrut says. 

“Tell me when,” Bodhi adds. 

Baze watches through the scope as Chirrut flits across the sand towards the road. Cold fear washes down his spine; no matter how many fights they’ve gotten into, no matter Chirrut’s unwavering faith in the Force, he’s never going to like seeing his partner in danger. 

He allows himself one single, long breath. In. And out. While he hasn’t prayed in years, the instincts trained into him by years of meditation are not lost so easily. His mind settles, his attention focusing in on the scope. 

Chirrut doesn’t miss a stride as he runs across the road a bare hundred yards in front of the prisoner transport. Left behind as he clears is the bacta-pack-sized charge Baze managed to acquire. Baze pulls the detonator from his pocket.

“Now,” he says, and hears the answering, distant roar of engines. “Chirrut, left,” he barks into the comm. Chirrut immediately swerves; his staff hits the rock outcropping Baze spotted, and Chirrut slides into cover behind it. 

Just in time. A mere few seconds later, the transport’s front end rolls over the charge. 

In the instant before he hits the detonator, Baze thinks, _Force guide us_.

\--

When Cassian comes to, there’s a hollow sort of ringing in his ears, and he can’t quite seem to figure out which way is up. 

_Bomb_ , he thinks, muddled. _Plan B_. 

Under the ringing, he hears the unmistakable sound of a ship going by overhead. Cannons fire. Metal screeches and warps.

_Get up. Get up!_

It takes him a bit of confused flailing to figure out which way _up_ is. It helps when he figures out that the flat surface beyond his visor is not the floor, but another Stormtrooper’s backplate. Once he squirms out from under the man’s limp body, he manages to stagger to his feet. 

His head spins, but the smoke in the cabin is thick, so he keeps the helmet on. He’s no good to anybody if he’s too busy coughing to fight. He plants a hand on the wall and squints into the thick air, trying to take stock. 

As his equilibrium slowly returns, he realizes it’s not his balance that’s wrong; the floor is canted hard to one side. Under his feet are two Stormtroopers, neither of them moving. Dead or unconscious, he doesn’t particularly care. The third he can see beneath the similarly still form of the Warden near the front. The prisoners on the lower side (including Lyra) crumple in disarray against the wall; as he watches, she stirs, just a little. 

The prisoners on the other side weren’t so lucky. Iola lies in a heap near the Warden, unmoving. The other, unnamed prisoner is face-down on the floor, a pool of blood seeping out from under their head. 

At first, Cassian just stares at the empty spot where Jyn was sitting. Then he follows the chain tether on the floor, stretched taut, to where she lies half-in, half-out of the cockpit. 

She’s not moving. 

“Jyn,” he says. Something’s broken in his helmet, because it doesn’t come through the vocalizer. Still clumsy from the explosion’s aftereffects, he scrambles across to her. “Jyn,” he repeats. His fingers aren’t cooperating in the gloves, so he tears them off and pulls at her shoulder until he turns her onto her side. The chain scrapes awkwardly against his armor, and he fumbles at the binders on her wrists until they pop reluctantly free. 

Cassian swallows. Judging by the angle, something is _very_ wrong with one of her wrists. A fresh cut above her eye marks where her face hit the ground; he prods at it as gently as he can, checking for swelling.

Jyn stirs. She swats at him; the second she moves her wrist, all the color drains from her face, leaving the bruise looking especially ghoulish. Her eyes fly open. “Fucking _ow.”_

Cassian’s briefly, strangely grateful for the Stormtrooper armor. It keeps him upright as his relief turns him temporarily boneless.

Jyn’s eyes focus on him. He rips the helmet off, uncaring of the smoke. He’s tired of looking at her through a screen. She lurches up so quickly she nearly bangs her head into his chestplate. “What happened?”

“Plan B,” Cassian says. 

Jyn coughs. “Some plan.”

“Give it time.” 

She snorts, then her eyes skate past him. “Door doesn’t look passable.”

Cassian glances behind him; sure enough, the frame is warped, dented in at the corner. Triage, his training says. One problem at a time. “We’ll worry about that in a minute. I need to get to Kay.”

Jyn nods. “I’ll get m—Lyra.”

Cassian’s not entirely convinced she’s going to be able to get up, but he knows better than to say so. Instead, he wordlessly lets her lean on him (and, to be honest, leans on her a little) until they’re both more or less upright. Jyn pauses, reaching up with her good hand to run her fingers over his cheek, then nods once and steps carefully past him. 

The cockpit is even worse than the main compartment; stands to reason, seeing as the bomb went off in front. If the driver’s not dead, he will be soon. Cassian doesn’t bother to look any closer, instead climbing to the crumpled form in the copilot’s seat. Luckily, the restraining bolt is easy to find, sticking off the back of Kay’s shoulder like a growth. Cassian pries at it with his fingers, curses, and bangs his armored elbow into it until it snaps off. 

Kay jerks. “It’s about time!”

“Scold me later,” Cassian says. “Can you get out?”

The droid looks down at the console twisted around his long legs. “Diagnostic returns fully operational,” he says, and starts twisting methodically. The console lets out a horrible screeching noise. “I need sixty-two seconds,” Kay says. 

“Make it thirty,” Cassian says. “I think we’re gonna need you to pry the door open.”

Kay huffs, even as he keeps working his way free. “How did you ever manage without me?”

Whatever reply Cassian might have made is cut off by the sound of a blaster shot from the passenger compartment. It’s followed by a faint, familiar gasp, and a horrible _thud_.

Cassian makes it back in record time, his heart beating a steady litany of _no, no, no, no—_

Jyn lies limp in Lyra’s arms, a fist-sized spot burned into the back of her jumpsuit. Bile rises in Cassian’s throat, a single word spilling out unbidden in a voice he barely recognizes as his own. “Jyn.”

Lyra’s head snaps up, her eyes going wide. 

And, closer, the Warden turns his blaster towards Cassian. “Jyn, eh?” he says. “That wouldn’t be Jyn Erso, daughter of—?”

He cuts himself off with a startled shout as Iola suddenly moves: a single, sharp kick that sends the Warden’s blaster flying. 

For an instant, Cassian and the Warden stare at each other. Then, they both scramble for blasters. 

Cassian gets there first. 

He doesn’t enjoy killing… but on his ever-growing list of regrets, the Warden won’t rank very high. 

He throws the blaster aside and scrambles past the Warden’s limp body to fall to his knees beside Jyn. 

“She’s breathing,” Lyra says, voice tight with strain. “I don’t—know how to treat blaster wounds.”

Cassian presses shaking fingers to her neck. Her pulse is thready. “We have bacta on our ship,” he says. “We need to get her there _now._ “ He turns, shouts toward the cockpit. “Kay!”

Whether Kay heard the shot or he just recognizes the desperation in Cassian’s voice, the droid doesn’t make a single snarky comment as he climbs out of the cockpit. His glowing eyes focus on Jyn. “Her vitals—“

“I _don’t_ want to know,” Cassian says sharply. “Get the door.”

Kay nods and steps past.

Cassian looks down at Jyn’s face, at the lines carved by pain around her mouth. 

Lyra strokes Jyn’s hair back with a shaking hand. “Jyn?” she says, almost inaudibly. 

Her eyelids flutter, just a little. 

“A little help?” Iola says.

Cassian looks up at the Twi’lek. Intelligence agents are trained to compartmentalize; he walls off the fear and dread long enough to find the suspicion underneath. 

The Warden knew. And while he’d been somewhat willing to monologue (a tendency Cassian had found to grow more common the higher an Imperial went in rank), he’d neglected to explain how. It’s possible it was happenstance, that someone had noticed weird changes in the system and pointed them out in time. It’s unlikely, but possible. 

And there’s only one other potential leak. 

He doesn’t have the patience left for subtlety. “Did you tell him?”

Iola studies him. “Will you believe me if I say no?”

With an unholy sound somewhere between a _screech_ and a _bang_ , the door bursts open, letting in the late morning light from outside. Cassian starts to gather Jyn up, rocking back on his heels to try and stand. 

“I can carry several hundred pounds without strain,” Kay says. “And you are injured.”

Cassian stops, and looks over his shoulder at the droid’s impassive face. He’s trusted Kay with his life more times than he can remember, now. He trusted Jyn to get Kay back. 

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. Be careful.”

He expects Kay to spout off some statistic, how much less likely it is that she’ll be further hurt in his care. Instead, the droid just says, “I will.” 

Cassian lets him take her, watches as Kay arranges her carefully over one shoulder (considering her wound, it really is the best way to carry her). He grabs the Warden’s blaster pistol for Kay’s free hand, and a rifle for himself. 

Lyra Erso picks up a weapon of her own, and Cassian raises an eyebrow. “Do you know how to use that?”

“Point and shoot?” Lyra says, with a shaky, grim sort of humor. 

“Close enough,” Cassian says. “Stay behind me and Kay.”

“Wait,” Iola says. She’s on her feet now, her hands held before her in as close to the universal sign of peace as she can get with the binders. “Don’t leave me here. If you don’t trust me, kill me. I’d rather that than go back.” 

Cassian hesitates. But only for a moment. 

“Run if you want,” he says. “Or come back with us and we’ll let General Syndulla decide.” He steps over to her. “Go for a blaster and I will shoot you,” he says as the binders fall away. 

“Fair enough,” Iola says grimly, rubbing her wrists. 

Outside the transport is chaos, thick smoke choking the air and turning their surroundings to haze. Somewhere nearby, the familiar sound of the U-wing’s engine rumbles, but he can’t spot it through the smog. What he can see, to his surprise, is a second transport nearby, nearly in two pieces, with a half dozen Stormtroopers taking cover around it. For a second, he’s convinced they’re caught—but then he notices that they’re all facing away from him. A moment later, one of the Stormtroopers falls. The others shout and duck. 

Baze is an army unto himself, Cassian thinks, a little admiringly. 

Chirrut appears out of the smoke, bits of cracked plastoid dusting his robes. “This way!”

They encounter two Stormtroopers on their way to the ship. The first, Chirrut takes out with a staff thrust to the throat before he’s even aware he’s found them. Cassian never even sees the second; Kay’s head swivels, his hand snaps up, and he fires into the smoke. The _thud_ of the trooper’s body hitting the ground is the only proof Cassian has that he was even there. 

The second they’re on the ship, Cassian’s reaching for Jyn, helping Kay lower her carefully to the bench seat. “Bodhi,” he shouts, “Medkit!”

Bodhi’s at his side in under ten seconds. The pilot blanches. “Oh, no.”

“She’s going to be fine,” Cassian growls. Then, trying to temper his tone, “But she needs help. Get us out of here.”

For a split second, he thinks Bodhi’s going to freeze. But the pilot’s come a long way; he just nods, shouts for Kay, and runs back to the front. 

Cassian’s only vaguely aware of the escape. Later, he remembers Baze clambering in, blaster smoking slightly. He remembers the way his fingers wrinkle up from the bacta he slathers on Jyn’s back, until he’s exhausted their supply and black starts to eat away at the edges of his vision. He remembers Lyra Erso, sitting with Jyn’s head cradled in her lap, stroking her daughter’s hair.

He remembers sitting on the floor beside the bench, holding Jyn’s undamaged hand, and finally letting his eyes slide closed.


	9. Chapter 9

When Lyra Erso wakes, it’s not the slow slide back to consciousness she’d always seen in the adventure vids. One moment, there’s nothing; then, suddenly, she’s looking at a white ceiling, hearing the beeping of various medical machines.

Her mind is a little slower to come around. At first, she’s sure she’s somehow landed in the prison medbay, maybe caught up in a riot in the yard. Even the medical droid fussing around in the corner is an old Empire model.  But something about that doesn’t click.

Slowly, the memories trickle back in. The escape plan. How it went wrong. And then—

She pushes herself upright. “Jyn,” she says, and is surprised when her voice crackles out of a dry throat.

“It’s alright, Lyra Erso,” says the man sitting on the bed next to hers. Lyra jumps, looks at him, and belatedly recognizes the man who’d appeared out of the smoke as they made for the ship on Goshyn. “She’s going to be okay.”

Lyra’s heart thuds against her ribs. She wants to believe him. “How do you know that?”

He nods, as if he was expecting that, and taps the end of the staff resting between his legs on the ground lightly. “Because all is as the Force wills it. And the Force would not bring you together only to tear you apart again.”

That’s unexpected enough that Lyra pauses, taking a second, more careful look. This time, she notices three things: the milky, faded blue color and lack of focus in his eyes; the red sash draped down beside his leg; and the kyber crystal pendant hanging around his neck.

“Also,” he adds, “Ym said she would be.”

Lyra blinks, a little lost. “Who?”

“Our esteemed head medic,” he says cheerfully. “Who has enough practice patching various Rebels up to be thoroughly sick of it.” He pauses. “Pun not intended.”

Lyra shakes her head. “Wait, who are you?”

“I’m Chirrut Îmwe,” he says, and his easy smile slips, just a bit. “My partner and I are—or were, if you ask Baze—Guardians of the Whills.”

That explains the kyber. The temple on Jedha was one of the biggest troves of kyber crystals in the galaxy. And there’s something in his voice, a hint of sorrow that suggests maybe it isn’t anymore. It wouldn’t surprise her. There’s nothing the Empire holds sacred. She figured that out a long time ago.

“I’ve heard Jedha is beautiful,” she says. She’d always wanted to go, before everything.

“It was,” he says.

Her heart plummets. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” he says simply.

The silence stretches for just slightly too long. Lyra’s eyes drift back to the kyber pendant. Something about the shape of it…

“That pendant,” she starts.

He smiles faintly. “It remembers you, too,” he says, and reaches up to remove it. “I was holding onto it for Jyn, but I think perhaps you should be the one to return it, yes?”

Lyra holds out a shaking hand, and Chirrut deposits the necklace in it carefully. The kyber is warm against her palm. Even though it’s been thirteen years, the shape is as familiar as it was that day on Lah’mu.

 _Trust the Force_.

Guilt twists in her stomach. “She didn’t tell me who she was,” she says quietly.

Chirrut hums thoughtfully, but doesn’t comment.

The silence that follows is broken by the door hissing open. The first man through the door is tall and burly in a worn-out grey jumpsuit, followed by a shorter, scrawnier man in a poofy winter parka. Both are balancing a tray of food on each arm; the first with ease, the second a little less gracefully.

“Chirrut,” the first man announces, “We’re back.”

“Oh!” the second man says as he comes into view, “You’re awake.” He offers a slightly uncertain smile. “We brought food, in case you were hungry?”

Lyra’s stomach growls loudly at the scent wafting from the trays. Part of her wants very much to refuse, to jump out of the bed right now and go find her daughter. The other part, the more sensible survivalist, reminds her that she has no idea how long it’s been since she last ate, and she won’t get far if she collapses. “That’s… very kind of you. Thank you.”

His smile solidifies. “You’re welcome. I’m Bodhi, by the way. Bodhi Rook.”

A moment later, they’re all settled in, with Chirrut and the taller man (who Lyra assumes to be Baze, his partner) on the bed next to her, while Bodhi pulls up a chair. For a while, no one talks, all too focused on the hearty stew and warm, soft bread. After over a decade of prison food, the fresh, simple flavor is better than any fancy meal Lyra ever had on Coruscant.

She’s grateful for the silence. It gives her time to think, to sort through her somewhat muddled memories of the escape. It also gives her questions time to multiply and begin to eat away at her, until only a thin thread of propriety keeps her from blurting them all out at once. But where to start?

She picks an easy one. “Not that I’m not grateful,” she says, once they’ve all more or less finished, “But I have to ask. Why all of—“ she waves a hand, encompassing the three men sitting around her and the tray on her lap—“this? I’m a stranger to you.”

“For the moment,” Chirrut says.

“It seemed like the thing to do,” Bodhi says, a little uncertain again. “Jyn’s our friend, and since we can’t really do any good staring at her floating in a bacta tank—“

“Not that that’s stopping some people,” Baze puts in, in what Lyra’s pretty sure is fond exasperation.

“We thought it’d be nice if you didn’t have to wake up alone,” Bodhi finishes.

Lyra mulls that over for a moment, and finds a smile tugging at her lips. If this is the difference between the Rebellion and the Empire—this small, simple human kindness—then there’s no doubt left in her mind that this is the right side of the fight.

“If you don’t mind,” she says, “I have a few questions.”

Baze snorts. “A few?”

“A lot,” she admits. “I’ve been out of the loop for… a while.”

“Fire away,” Bodhi says, settling back into his chair.

 --

Jyn’s been in a bacta tank before. Once. They aren’t exactly on anybody’s bucket list; if you’re wounded enough to need full submersion, you’re closer to death than anyone really wants to get. But she’d been on the wrong end of an explosion once, when she used to run with Saw, and somehow he pulled the right strings or called in the right favors to get her into one in time to save her.

As it turns out, one tank is much like another. She’s only half-conscious, but it’s enough to feel the brush of subtle currents along her skin, the tingling numbness in her back, the _ssshh-shhhh_ sound of it against her eardrums.

When they pull her out, Cassian is waiting for her. Before she’s even awake enough to worry, he’s there.

It’s Cassian who wraps a blanket around her shoulders as she’s shivering in the cold Echo Base air, who sits beside her while a droid methodically vacuums the excess bacta off her skin, and who’s still there when the hustle and bustle dies down and she’s left curled up on her side on a cot, a cast on one wrist, bandages wrapped around her back and Cassian’s hand in hers.

“My mother?” she asks, the aftertaste of bacta bitter on her lips.

“She’s okay,” he says.

“Good,” she mutters, eyes drooping closed. She forces herself back awake long enough to tug at his hand. “I’m cold.”

He raises a tired eyebrow at her. “I don’t think Ym would approve.”

“Don’t care,” Jyn says.

“Yeah,” Cassian says, “Neither do I.”

He crawls into the bed with her. He still smells like smoke and plastoid armor, but she’s too tired to scold him for it, so she just tucks her face into his neck and lets her eyes slide closed again.

“Alright, you two, rise and shine,” Ym says.

Jyn cracks her eyes open enough to glare over Cassian’s shoulder at her.

Ym’s having none of it. She plonks a tray down on the table next to the bed. “You—both of you—need to eat. And you, Major, need to let me take a look at your head.”

Once they’re both fed, with Cassian now sporting a bacta patch peeking out from under his hairline, Ym peels the bandages carefully off of Jyn’s back to check the wound.

“One more go in the tank and a week of rest,” Ym decides. “Maybe two weeks for your wrist. After that you should be back to normal. You’ll have a nasty scar, though.”

“What else is new?” Jyn jokes, even as relief makes her go boneless.  

Ym covers her back up, then moves around to take the now-empty tray. “By the way,” she says, “Jyn, your mother said she’d like to see you, when you’re ready.”

Something in Jyn’s chest feels suddenly tight. “Thanks,” she manages. Ym nods and departs.

Cassian sits next to her on the bed, his shoulder warm against hers. For a long moment, neither of them speaks.

“Do you want me to stay?” Cassian asks.

It’s the right thing to say; not sympathy, or worry that she might not be able to handle it, just a reminder that she doesn’t have to face this alone if she doesn’t want to. For a moment, she’s tempted to take him up on it. Then again, she’s not sure she wants to explain to her mother just yet that her… whatever Cassian is to her… was partially responsible for Galen’s death. That seems better saved for a second or third conversation, at least.

“I don’t think so,” she says finally. She reaches up to cup the back of his neck, turning him so she can plant a gentle kiss on his mouth. “But thanks.” She wrinkles her nose. “Go use the fresher. You smell like a Stormtrooper.”

“Ouch,” he says, teasing. He pauses long enough to kiss her again, soft and lingering. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he murmurs into her mouth. She just leans into him harder.

After he leaves, there’s just enough time for Jyn to take a single, deep, shaky breath, before the door hisses open again and her mother comes in.

This time, Jyn lets herself really look at Lyra, compares her to the faded memory of those final hours on Lah’mu when her world fell apart. There are new lines around Lyra’s mouth, the corners of her eyes, new streaks of gray in her hair. But there are also things that haven’t changed. The thoughtful set of her mouth. Her hair escaping her attempt at a bun (a trait Jyn somehow inherited). The dirt under her fingernails. It’s the last that sends a pang of warmth through Jyn’s chest. Her mother was a survivalist, always exploring and hiking when Jyn was very young, always out in the fields on Lah’mu working to make things grow. This dirt didn’t come from either of those things, but it’s still reassuring, somehow.

As she winds her way through the various medical machines to Jyn’s bed, Lyra does her own examination. Her eyes keep coming back to Jyn’s, a mix of emotions too tangled for Jyn to name flickering across her face. Lyra settles carefully, a little awkwardly, into the chair next to her.

For a moment, they’re both silent. A storm rages in Jyn’s heart.

“You have wonderful friends,” Lyra says eventually, giving an uncertain smile.

“Yeah?” Jyn says.

Lyra nods. She reaches into a pocket and pulls out the kyber pendant. “The Guardian—Chirrut—he gave me this to give back to you.”

Jyn doesn’t take it. “Maybe you should keep it,” she says. “It was yours, once, after all.”

Lyra’s eyes flicker. “I gave it to you,” she says quietly. “It’s yours.”

Jyn nods, slowly, and when Lyra offers it to her again she takes it. The warmth of it, its familiar weight, soothes the storm inside her.

Lyra takes in a sudden, sharp breath. “I’m sorry, Jyn.”

Jyn’s breath catches.

Her mother smiles faintly, a little bitterly. “Thirteen years is a long time for regrets,” she says. “What I did on Lah’mu… I thought it was right at the time.”

“I was a child,” Jyn says.

“I know,” Lyra says.

“You left me,” Jyn says.

“I know,” Lyra says.

Jyn’s eyes burn with the effort of holding back tears. Her hand aches where she’s clenched it around the kyber crystal. “Papa,” she blurts, “He’s—dead. Saw, too.”

Lyra rocks back, a shaky little breath escaping her. “Galen,” she says softly. “I’d hoped… but I think I knew.”

Jyn swallows hard. “I was there,” she says. “For—for both of them.”

Her mother’s eyes glisten. “Oh, Jyn.” Her arms jerk up, as if she’s going to reach out, but she stops, uncertain.

Before she even realizes she’s doing it, Jyn slides to the edge of her bed, and their arms are around each other. She buries her face in Lyra’s shoulder, breathes in her mother’s scent, still familiar after all these years.

“I missed you,” she mutters into Lyra’s shirt.

Lyra’s hand strokes her hair, cradles the back of her head like she’s precious. “I’ve missed you, too.”


	10. Epilogue

The week that follows her arrival on the Rebel base is both easier than Lyra feared it would be and harder than she’d hoped.

Day one, when she leaves Jyn sleeping in the medbay with Cassian at her side, she’s greeted outside the door by a smiling Chirrut Îmwe.

“I thought you might like a guide to the cantina,” he says.

“I probably could have figured it out,” she points out as they walk.

“Of course,” he says easily, “But this way, I have an excuse to stay and talk with you, if you want.”

Lyra finds she very much does.

Day two, Jyn and Cassian spend most of the day in meetings. Lyra ventures outside; though the freezing chill and ceaseless snow soon drive her back in, something in her heart eases at the sight of the endless gray sky overhead.

Day three, Jyn is officially released from the medbay. She and Lyra spend their lunchtime talking. By unspoken agreement, they don’t talk about Galen; instead, Jyn talks about her time growing up with the Partisans. Lyra listens. She reminds herself that she knew who Saw was when she left Jyn to his care (and, really, he couldn’t have extracted Jyn from a battle that involved her from the moment she was born even if he’d wanted to). She traces the lines of Jyn’s face as she talks, tries to reconcile the warrior before her with the child she’s carried in her mind all these years.

That evening, Cassian comes by her quarters, a holopad in hand.

“I don’t know when Jyn will be ready to talk about it,” he says, “But I thought you deserved to know how your husband died.”

Lyra’s stomach churns. She takes the holopad in shaking hands, looks at the title scrolling across the screen. _Operation Fracture - Mission Debrief._

“Does General Draven know you’re giving me this?” she asks, trying to keep her tone light.

The corner of his mouth quirks. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission.” He pauses, then more seriously adds, “Jyn knows. That’s what matters.”

Lyra nods. She studies his face. “Who are you to my daughter?”

He considers for long enough that Lyra’s not sure he’s going to answer. Then, “I don’t know,” he says. “I love her. That’s enough for me.”

Day four, she carries the datapad in the pocket of her newly-acquired parka, unread. She throws herself into finding the rhythm of the base, works herself to exhaustion helping with whatever she can find. That night, her arms aching, she gives in to the inevitable.

Day five, after a night spent sleepless going over the contents of the datapad, she tracks down Bodhi Rook. She finds him waist-deep beneath the U-wing they escaped Goshyn on.

“You knew Galen,” she says when he slides out from under the ship.

He looks at her for a long moment. “Not as much as I would’ve liked to, I think.”

“Tell me about the man you knew. Please.”

He does.

Day six, she finds herself at dinner with the entire Rogue One team, listening to one of Chirrut’s tales of fighting Imperial occupation on Jedha (with occasional editorials from Baze thrown in). She’s mostly watching Jyn, her heart aching at the way the light catches on the sparks of color in her daughter’s eyes. It means she misses most of the story, but she’s the first to see when Jyn’s gaze slides past her to something behind her, the muscles in her shoulders tensing slightly. Lyra turns to find the Twi’lek from the escape standing there.

“I’m shipping out with General Syndulla in the morning,” she says. “I wanted to thank you. You could’ve left me there, and you didn’t.”

Cassian nods, the suspicion draining from his eyes. “I’m glad I was wrong,” he says.

“I’m gonna quote you on that,” Jyn teases.

Day seven dawns bright and clear, the ever-present clouds finally parting to reveal the dim central star of the Hoth system. Lyra wastes no time lacing up her boots, scaring up a day pack and stuffing it full of ration bars and emergency equipment in case it decides to blizzard later on.

Jyn meets her at the exit, her own pack slung over her shoulder. She toes the ground a little, scratches absently at the brace around one wrist. “Mind if I…?”

Lyra smiles. “Not at all.”

They don’t talk much while they walk. Jyn keeps her eyes on the snow, bulling through even the waist high bits with sheer stubbornness. Lyra doesn’t push, just enjoys the faint warmth of the sun on her face when the wind lets up and the fresh, crisp scent of the air.

They stop for lunch atop the tallest rise they’ve found yet. Lyra sits, chewing on her ration bar, and looks out over the endless white expanse of Hoth.

“Was Vallt like this?” Jyn asks after a while.

Lyra glances at her, but her eyes are on the horizon. “Yes,” she says eventually. “Though the Valltii’s cities were a nice change from all the—“ she waves a hand at the snow-covered plains.

“White?” Jyn offers, a slight smile quirking at her lips.

“Exactly.”

Jyn’s smile fades. She raises a hand to her neck; Lyra catches a glimpse of the kyber pendant between her fingers, glinting in the sunlight. “You and Papa were studying kyber crystals there. Right?”

Lyra nods. She takes a deep breath. “He loved his work,” she says, and her voice only shakes a little. “But he never wanted it to be used… the way it was.”

Jyn nods. She drops her hand back into her lap. “Cassian said he gave you the mission report.”

“He did,” Lyra says. It surprised her, once she’d read it. Not many men would have willingly admitted, if only in an indirect sort of way, to having a hand in the death of someone’s husband. She considers asking Jyn about it.

It turns out she doesn’t have to. Jyn looks over at her, nods a little, and turns back to the horizon. “We all have regrets,” she says quietly.

Fair enough. And if Jyn’s forgiven him—which she clearly has, all things considered—then Lyra’s willing to follow her lead.

“Who is he to you?” she asks. Jyn glances at her, and Lyra quirks a smile. “I am your mother. I get to ask.”

Jyn snorts. She thinks for a long moment, then shrugs. “I love him,” she admits. “Other than that… I don’t know.”

Finally, hesitantly, Jyn tells Lyra about Operation Fracture, about finding Galen only to lose him again, and if the wind freezes the tears on both of their cheeks neither of them says anything about it. She tells her about Scarif, about Krennic’s final, ignominious end. She tells her about the destruction of the Death Star, the way one scientist helped bring the Empire to its knees.

When she’s done, Lyra reaches for her, and Jyn scoots across the snow to wrap her arms around Lyra’s back.

“I’m so proud of you, Jyn,” Lyra says. What she doesn’t say is that she’s grateful, too. To Saw and the Rebellion. To Cassian and the rest of Rogue One. To anyone and everyone who, in whatever small way, made it possible for her to hold her daughter in her arms again.

Jyn just squeezes her harder.

They stay on the rise until the sun drifts low on the horizon. Sometimes they talk, but mostly they just sit and watch the snow blow across the plains.

Then, when the late afternoon light takes on that telltale amber cast, Jyn sighs and stands, brushing the snow off her pants. She turns and smiles at Lyra.

“Let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the end of Furnace! Thank you so much for reading, even with the kind of sporadic updates the last few weeks! Thank you as well to my lovely beta [goingmywaydoll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingmywaydoll), and to [Yavemiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yavemiel) for taking a look at this last chapter in particular!
> 
> I'm still planning on continuing this series: however, it's been a bit of a struggle lately, so I want to take some time and really delve back into the movie and the original trilogy to get a sense for how it's going to play out. To that end, I'm going to be focusing on [Heaven's Not Far Away](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10859979/chapters/24118608) for at least the next couple of weeks, to build my buffer of chapters back up and figure out where I'm going next. Thanks again for reading!


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